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df fJA 



THE QUIET WORSES FOR GOOD. 



A 
FAMILIAR SKETCH 

OF THE LATG 

JOHN CHAEUESWORTH, B.D. 



r BBCTOB OF FLOWTON, SUFFOLK, 
AND LATBLT 
BBOTOS OF 8T. HILDBRP'g, BBIAD 8TBBET, LONDOV. 



TOOBTHSB WITH 8H0BT NOTICES, 

OF A FEW EMINENT CONTEMPORABIBS. 

BY 

JOHN PUECELL FITZ-GERALD, M.A. 

OF TBIN. COLL. CAMB. 



flonlroit: 

DALTON AND LUCY, BOOKSELLERS TO THE QUEEN, 

28, COCKSPUB STREET; 

NISBET A CO., BERNERS STREET; 

HADDOCK, IPSWICH; LODEB, WOODBBIDOE. 

1865. 



JZ/(P 



•/• z-^- 



TO 

MY LONG VALUED FBIEND, 

THE AV^IDOAV^ 

OF 

JOHN GHABLESWOBTH, 

THIS IMPBEEECT OITTLIKE 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

Page 
Short Outline of Life— The Especial Characteris- 
tics of Mr. C.'s Piety . . . . 1 

PART n. 

Mr. C.'s Ordination— His Curacy in Norfolk— 
Mr. C. presented to the Living of Flowton, 
Suffolk— Account of the state of that village, 
and of many parishes in that and other parts of 
East Suffolk 50 years ago— Mr. C.'s labours 
in and around Flowton . . ■ . 9 

PART m. 

Some notice of Mr. C.'s Ministrations — ^What is 
Apostolic Ministry ?— Reference to St. Paul's 
three Pastoral Epistles . . . .24 

PART IV. 

Enlarged scope of his Labours — They are for the 
whole World— Church Missionary, Bible, and 
Jews' Societies ... . . .36 

PART V. 

Mr. C.*s residence in Suffolk — Acquaintance with 
Eminent Ministers — ^Especially with the Rev. 
J. P. NoxTiDGB — Some notice of Mr. N.'s Cha- 
racter and Ministry — The Rev. Dr. Marsh^ 
Revs. John and Edward Bickersteth . 50 

PART VI. 

Mr. C. goes to the University of Cambridob.— 
The Rev. C. Simeon— Some account of his 
Ministry — Its great Effects — Anecdotes of him 
related by Mr. C — Further notice of Rev. E. 
Bickersteth . . . . .61 



CONTENTS. 



PART vn. 

Mr. C.'s Interest in the Abolition of Slayeiy— 
Literconrse with Thomas Clabkson— Some 
notice of that eminent man — Introduction to 
Mr.C 

PART vni. 

Mr. C's removal to London^His various Labours 
there — Ordination of his youngest Son — His 
early Death— Letter from Rev. J. P. Nottidgb, 
on that occasion— Sermon at St. Mildred's 
Church by Rev. E. Bickbbstbth— Letter of 
Rev. F. Pacey to Mr. C— Last Illness and 
Death of Mr. C. . . . . • 

PART IX. 

Short Notice of the Rev. £. Bickersteth' s 
Preaching in Mr. C.'s Church. — A Letter from 
the Rev. F. Tacet.— Mr. C.*s last lUness and 
Death— General Reflections upon the Success or 
Fdlure of Ministry. .... 



Page 



83 



99 



120 



Appendix 



143 



PAET I. 
Shoet Notice op Life.— The Especial Cha- 

BACTEBIBTICS OF Ms. ChABLESWOBTH's 

Piety. 

Jomr Chableswobth was bom in 1782, at 
the Parsonage of OssnroTOiir, in Nottingham- 
shire. His &ther, once Pellow of Trinity Col- 
lege, Gambbidoe, was Bector of that Parish. 
Both his previous ancestors were also Clergy- 
men. No records remain of his early education 
and youth. 

At the usual time, he was, sent to study Me- 
dicine, being intended for its profession. His 
brother, Dr. Charlesworth, was for a long 
period, an eminent and highly esteemed Physi- 
cian in Lincoln. After his term of study, at 
the age of 22 years, he began practising under 
a Surgeon, who resided at Clapham in Surrey. 
There he listened to the teaching of that emi- 

B 



2 HEMOIB OF THE 

nent Minister, the Eev. J. Venn, a name now 
endeared to us by four generations of True 
Piety. 

There he became intimate with another well- 
known witness for truth, Henry Thornton, 
Esq., M.P., one of "Wilberforce's most active 
friends and fellow-labourers in the Slave-Trade- 
Abolition Struggle. Thus Mr. Charlesworth, 
associated himself, as a young man, with what 
the Edinburgh Eeviewer has derisively called 
" The Clapham Sect" — a body of men who be- 
lieved what they professed to believe of Gospel- 
truth ; and who helped by their faith and zeal 
to bring on the great revival of genuine religion 
that broke forth witliin the Established Church, 
and led hundreds of its Ministers to own and 
practise as the living faith, a scheme of man's 
redemption and a holiness of life, which their 
predecessors had almost discarded. 

It was amidst this hallowed society that 
young Charlesworth, decided to join the com- 
pany of faithful Ministers. In 1809, he received 
ordination as Deacon from the then Bishop of 
NoBwioH. He was licensed to the Curacy of 
Happisburgh, a retired village on the N.E. 



ff— a"""*^"i'»^^i^"^««^^»^"'P!»*"««""p«™"»^p 



BEY. JOHN CHARLE8W0BTH. 3 

coast of Norfolk. In order to qualify him- 
self by more full theological knowledge for 
his sacred o£Bce, he entered his name at Queen's 
College, Cambridge. About 1822-8, he gra- 
duated as B.D. 

In the year 1814, he was presented by his 
friend Mr. Thornton (of Clapham), to the 
Eectory of Flowton, a small rural village in 
fiuffolk. For thirty years he unceasingly 
laboured for the good of that parish. In 1844, 
he removed to London, having accepted the 
living of one of the City Churches, St. Mildred's, 
Bread Street. That Incumbency he held till 
his death, which took place at Islington, in 
his peaceful home, on April 22Qd, 1864, at the 
age of 82 years. - : 

Such is the outline of mere dates and places ; 
but what was the life, the spirit, the iiifluence 
over others, that made up and distinguished 
this holy man's course for more than 50 years - 
of Ministry? ''' ' 

Every faithftd servant of our Divine Ee- 
DEEMEB fills his Special place in the mystical 
temple : some place that no one else could so 
well fill. Each Saint has some characteristic 



4 KEMOIB OE THE 

mark ; it is distinct (and as we commonly use 
the term) oripnal; some special '* spiritual 
gift," which makes that Saint honoured and 
useful, while it brings some special glory to 
God. But surely, if we weigh piety in the 
"sanctuary's balance," that piety which is of 
the greatest value before the Diyine eye, is 
" the humble and contrite spirit," the " orna- 
ment of a meek and quiet spirit."* These are 
according to that standard ** of great price ;'*t 
and the " poor in spirit" J have already entered 
the " kingdom of Heaven." For through a 
Savioue's cross engraven within us, and the 
habitual knowledge of our still inbred depravity ; 
the selfish and the ambitious, our self-import- 
ance and applause seeking, have in part given 
way, and we can delight to work in oar ap- 
pointed place unobtrusively and not for reward. 
If ever a man distinctively bore these high 
marks of godliness and was "clothed with 
hamility,"§ and that constantly through a long 
life, my revered friend was that man. TJn- 
feignedly believing his own ruin through siA, 

• 1 Peter, iii. f Psalms, 41, xvii. t Matt. v. 
$ 1 Peter, v. 5. 



BXV. JOHK CHABLESWOBTH. O 

and the boundless humiliation and mercy of 
OoB the Soir in His atonement made for sin, 
Mr. Charlesworth's heart had been cast into 
the mould of that grand central soul-trans- 
forming truth, " Ghbist died for the ungodly." 
Prom such views of his Sayiottb and of him- 
self, Mr. C. rose up a man of simple mind, 
with a single object before him, and of simple 
manners. In conversation he had nothing to 
say of or for himself. He never told you what 
he had been doing in or out of his parish, or 
said by hint or implication, '' Come, see my zeal 
for the LoBD." But his tongue was fluent, 
and his eye kindled, as he told you of souls 
awakened to living piety, through the ministry 
of any other clergyman, or nonconformist (Tri- 
nitaran) minister ; the news of heavenly light 
breaking upon some &r off heathen land ; the 
wondrous change wrought in the South Sea 
Islands, by the Gospel; whether preached 
by SwABTZ or Gabey in the East Imdies, by 
MorFATT amongst the Capfbes, or by the 
martyred Williams in Tahiti. It was the 
spreading of a Saviottb's kingdom in the way 
and by the means most conformed to an Apos- 



6 MEMOIB OF THE 

tolic method; yiz,, faitX that the 1B.01jY Spieit 
would one day honour His truth amidst all 
Satan^s opposition ; no dependence on the help of 
any earthly Jcingdom ; readiness to die in such a 
work of love to souls ; the very following of the 
LoBD Jesus in the restitution of man to God. 

In Sussex, about the year 1851, while praying 
at our morning family worship, he used these 
words with heart-solemnity; "May we never 
seek to be great in any thing, or seek great 
things for ourselves, O Lobd 1" Nor could we 
fail to mark how truly he acted in the spirit of 
this prayer ; for in the training of his children, 
he never seemed trying (like so many of us) to 
push them forward into worldly notice. 

With this subdued and gentle spirit, these 
unobtrusive manners and conversation, he was 
incessantly busied in " doing good unto all men," 
as far as his hand, or voice, or pen could reach. 
His meekness was not a passive torpor, a pre- 
text for doing as little, or undertaking as little 
as possible. It was not a weak waiting until 
" greater men" took the lead. Having no ambi- 
tion to shinCy his simple thought was to " do 
service*' for the glory of his Savioue ; happy 



fiST. JOHN CHASLESWOBTH. 7 

to work with the " gifts," the strength of mind 
and body granted to him. 

Such a combination of the self-abased and 
the zealous worker, the meek and the vigorous, 
appear to make up the " perfect man." To serve 
God, to serve man "for Chbist's sake/' is 
man's only true greatnesM : he then fills his 
proper place — ^the place that Angels delight to 
fill in heaven. Such was my friend's delight on 
earth. It was his heaven begun. With all this 
deep humility, this unshowy activity, there was 
a freshness, a brightness, a cheerfulness that 
ever played over his countenance and his words. 
They gave a charm to your intercourse with 
him. A vein of quiet ** humour" or pleasantry 
sparkled amidst his seriousness. Having the 
peace of heaven within, all was radiant without. 
How did he admire and take pleasure in the 
flowers, the birds, the streams, as he walked or 
drove to his parish along the country lanes. 

Prom this inner chamber of sunlight his soul 
looked through a golden medium on all around. 

He had, therefore, a kind word and look for 
everybody. His geniality and courtesy made 
you feel that you were not sitting with some 



8 



MEMOIB 07 THE 



doctrinal inquisitor. He did not eye you, or 
•peak to you, as if he were going to detect your 
shortcomings in this practice, or that tenet ; he 
was accessible therefore to many who would 
have shrunk from teachers sterner and more 
*' dignified." 




BET. JOHir CHABLESWOBTH. 



PAET 11. 

Mb. C. leates Clafham, aitd is obbaiked. 
— His Cubacy m Nobpolk. — Pbeseittsd 
TO the Litoto op Flowtok, Stteeolk. — 
State or that Villaoe, and op otheb 
Pabishes nr East SupppLs: piptt teabs 
AGO. — Mb. C. laboxtbs m ajstd aboitnd 
Plowton. 



As I have before said, after practising as a 
Surgeon for some years at Clapham, Mr. 0. 
resolved to quit tbit profession, and to conse- 
crate himself to the highest of Ministries — the 
delivery of God*s message of salvation, and 
the pastorship of souls. 

Prom what I can gather of his first religious 
life, it was &om the teaching of an earnest 
young Curate, who ministered in the Church of 
St. Mary's, Nottingham, that his soul first rose 



10 MSMOIB OF THE 

above a formal and inoperatiTe faith in God's 
truth, into a heartfelt and practical love of it. 
From the same Ministry, and at the same 
time, two youthful friends received the same 
blessing. 

EiBEE White was one of these friends. 
Long before that time he had written lines of 
exquisite poetic beauty. Something of Byron's 
fire, something of Keats's glowing imagery, 
were his; but his imagination, together with 
his sense of verbal melody, thenceforwards 
became chastened ; chastened yet elevated by 
soaring to heayenly heights. Many of his 
hymns and " spiritual songs" now justly rank 
and will be sung with those of Cowper and 
Montgomery, with those of Doddridge, the 
Wesleys, and Grant. To the end of his short 
course Mr. C. kept up intimacy with him by 
letter writing. 

The other friend was Feedbbick Tacet. 
In after life he became the Eector of Swanton 
Morley, in Norfolk. For his cheerful godliness, 
and constant activity in doing good, no Clergy- 
man in our Eastern Counties was more attrac- 
tive and beloved. For sixty years Mr. C. and 



BEV. JOHN CHABLSSWOBTH. 



11 



hiniBelf were as brothers. One of his last let- 
ters to Mr. G. will be found later in this 
Memoir. 

We cannot doubt that Venk'b ministry, the 
society of Thobktok, and so many true fol- 
lowers of Chbist, with whom he had become 
acquainted, had stimulated him to give all his 
remaining life to the greatest of services. He 
was in 1809 ordained a Deacon, by the then 
Bishop of Norwich. We may say prematurely 
ordained, according to our higher standard of 
theological knowledge. But'so things were then. 

He took the Curacy of Happisbubgh, a wild 
village on the searcoast of East Nobfole:. There, 
I believe, his happy labours continued for four 
years. But I can find no records of that time. 

I must pass on to the second and most im- 
portant scene of his ministry. To the parish of 
Flowtoit, SurpoLK, he was presented in 1814. 
In and around Elowtoii^ he laboured untiringly 
for thirty years. 

ELOWTOif is one of our many small rural vil- 
lages. It lies in an out-of-the-way country, 
about six and a-half miles S.E. of Ipswich. Its 
population was about 150. 



12 HEMOnt OF THE 

But what was the spiritual and moral state 
of that place at that time, fifty years ago ? 
No zealous Methodist Brethren had gone to 
arouse the people. No Independent or Bap- 
tist Chapel, was nearer to them than six miles 
off. 

What provision had been made for the vil- 
lagers' religious instruction by their clergymen, 
during a probable term of 150 years ? Many 
were the village churches in which only once a 
fortnight, such a Service (as it was called) took 
place^ Many had only one service inthree weeks. 
The Curate often lived at some miles distance 
from one or two of his churches. Often two out 
of three such parishes had no Parsonage. The 
Sectors of such parishes often lived in another 
County, on a better " living," where they slum- 
bered in genteel society, and paid half-yearly 
visits to those neglected parishes in which they 
had solemnly vowed to "feed the flock of 
" Cheist." 

It was a terrible illustration of the total vwant 
of truth and honesty, with which masses of 
men could upon their knees devote themselves 
at an Ordination Service to the most solemn of 



BEY. JOWK CHABLESWOBTH. 18 

engagements. At the time of Buch Ordination, 
they knew the Bmall income which their Curacy 
would yield. At the time of institution to such 
benefice, the Clergyman knew its poverty. Tet 
they all vowed to minister devotedly in those 
parishes. 

To young people of the present day, who see 
so great a number of pious Clergymen labour- 
ing with activity in our large towns ; who see 
Parsonages and resident Clergymen in most 
villages, and the holding of two distant parishes 
by one Pastor, made to be illegal ; such a state 
of things as I have described, may seem to be 
fabulous. But such was too truly then the fact. 
Devotion to his sacred calling by a Clergyman 
was by the most part of his brethren set down 
as fanaticism. Earnestness in the pulpit was 
called ranting. The Clergy as a body, were 
divided into classes, gentlemen who "took 
Orders" for the purpose of resting in a genteel 
profession and an easy hdme ; no more distin- 
guished for great piety than for great learning ; 
and needy persons of a lower grade, who 
through Ordination sought a moderate income 
out of the pay of two or three Curacies, toge- 



14 MEMOIB OF THE 

ther with the keeping of a school. But through 
OoD*8 great mercy to England, and to a Church 
which Btill held inviolate the great truths of 
the primitive Faith, Weslet and Whitpibld 
had risen. Just as the first '' Beformation'* 
rescued those living truths from their entomb- 
ment amidst every falsehood of Eomanism ; so, 
now these second Beformers brought out the 
livinp power of those rescued truths upon man's 
heart and practice, in contrast to the cold for- 
malism of " Services," of which neither people 
nor ministers valued the Spiritual import. In 
all parts of England, therefore. Clergymen were 
to be found believing with heartfelt power^ and 
living in aeeardanee with what they profeseed^ 
believing that souls needed to be saved. 

No Parsonage existed in ELOwroir, nor in a 
great number of small villages through Eng- 
land. No Parsonage was built during the thirty 
years that Mr. C. held the living. I do not 
understand why my friend did not make vigor- 
ous efforts to get a house built for him ; for the 
people's advantage as for his own comfort, it 
was equally needful. But I believe that his 
sensitive fear of even appearing to ask what 



BEY. JOHN CHABLESWOKTH. 15 

would add to his own convenience, withheld 
him from making the effort. 

Owing to this want, Mr. C. was obliged to 
drive or walk over to his village. During some 
of the years of his. Suffolk time, he lived at 
Bbanfobd and at Bubstall, within three and 
four miles of Flowtgn. Twice a week, to drive 
or walk over to and from it, was no small 
addition to the expense and fatigue incident to 
his charge. But for thirty years he persevered. 

Flowton's moral degradation kept pace with 
its irreligion. The men were many of them 
poachers. Drunkenness abounded. It was 
scarcely safe for a well-dressed person to walk 
alone even by daylight, in the village lanes. 
There was not even a rude " dame's school." 
No labouring man being able to read tolerably, 
when Mr. C. first entered his reading desk a 
woman acted as the clerk, in giving out the 
responses. Her successor, a small farmer, 
whose reading was inferior to her*s, often turned 
round to his neighbours in the next pew, with 
"Is that the right word?" When the new 
Clergyman's wife, went to visit the cottagers, 
a poor woman almost fell at her feet with 



16 ^aOiOTR OV THB 

astoiiisliinent, at the sig^t of He fmt lady 
ainoiigst tlipin- 

Such was the half barharons state of Flow- 
TO¥ and its adjoining Tillages^ fifty years ago. 

The people had to be tanght deanlinessy 
neatness, and eommon manners. Like the 
wild Yillagers of the Mesdip and Cheddab 
districts, whom HASirAH Mobe and her noble 
sisters had begun to timXue; so the people on 
whom Mr. C. had to work. ^'Ke found the 
place a wilderness,*' one of his children has 
truly said, ''he left it a promisiDg garden." 
The word of Life, the knowledge of a Sayiovb, 
was, in all such cases the only true CwiUser. 
Each cottage, each fiirm-house, was Tisited by a 
loving Mend in the name of the Losd Jesus. 
The Water of Life soon began to renew the 
parched ground. 

But in order to illustrate somewhat more 
fully the general state of many places in East 
Suffolk, and before we make any remarks on 
Mr. C.'s style and mode of ministry, I will state 
some &cts that were occurring in my own early 
years. 

Irreverence in all the outward conduct of 



/zsa 



EEV. JOHIS" CHJLELBSWOETH. 17 

religious ordinances went parallel (as it must 
do) with the absence of inward religion. Neg- 
lected, dilapidated buildings, walls damp from 
the want of firing and ventilation; dast-coyered 
pews with upright backs that defied all com- 
fort, in which people sat face to face to each 
other, except when they tried the more complex 
art of kneeling back to back ; — buildings just 
kept weather tight by the sordid allowance of 
Church rates. The windows were often half 
bricked up to avoid the expense of keeping them 
in decent repair : the screams of school-children 
in place of singing, or the ludicrous instrumen- 
tal efforts of the village fiddle and clarionet ; 
all these' made most of our village churches 
places of imprisonment from which you longed 
to escape. Nothing could make amends for 
the damp and gloomy confinement, but the glow 
of a living Gospel, brightening the sermon and 
the prayers. Such was the irreverence displayed 
in the mass of village churches forty years ago. 
A general feeling of relief pervaded the assem- 
bly when that well-known formula of ordinary 
" discourses" was heard, " and now to conclttde,^^ 
or " in the last place." 

c 



18 KSMOIB OF THX 

What often took place then, fleems incredible 
now. Asyoa entered the church porch, the 
Tillage idlers stood around it. In the church 
where the writer in his childhood and youth 
att^ided, the Clergyman on entering, laid his 
hat and riding whip upon the communion table 
instead of in a yaeant pew. At a sea-town on 
our Suffolk coast, there was a compact between 
the Clergyman and Dissenting minister, that 
whoever of them should run quickest firom the 
toll-gate to the church, should first occupy the 
Church for his ** service." While on the four 
days of the year in which the Holt Cohhukion 
was celebrated, a common black bottle, and a 
pewter chalice and plate were all that the parish 
would give. At Flowtok Church, former 
Ciuntes had officiated in their spurs. In look- 
ing over the archives of the parish church, as 
Mr. C. used to tell with his own amiable hu- 
mour, one item of disbursements ran as follows, 
"For meudin surplis tore by the Parson's 
spurs r In a large village not many miles from 
Ipswich, the Clerk mounted the Church-tower 
at the hour of " service'* and if only three or 
four people were seen to be coming along the 



nan 



BET. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 19 

roads during a quarter of an hour, he was 
ordered by the Minister to close the door, and 
relieve the comers from attendance. 

But far more serious dishonour attached itself 
to many a village church. To the writer's own 
knowledge, in a parish within three miles of his 
home, the Eector was generally tipsy early in 
the day time. This went on for years ; no ac- 
tive steps were taken by Churchwardens or 
Parishioners to move for his suspension by the 
Bishop ; no " Cler^'Discipline Act,^^ such as 
now exists, made such a proceeding very easy on 
their part; while the amiable but supine Prelate, 
to whose oversight the whole parishes of Suffolk 
and Norfolk were nominally entrusted, took no 
step to check the scandal. At last the tottering 
drunkard nearly fell into a grave which was 
just waiting to receive the body of a parishioner, 
having forced his way, despite a:llt'embnstrance, 
that he might take a part in the ceretoony ! In 
a large village near Ipswich, the Incumbent 
wrote books and openly published them, in 
which the DrvnriTY of the Lord Jestjs was 
denied ! His Bishop received a copy of one of 
these books &om the writer ! and thanked him 



20 HEMOIB OF THE 

for it, though he said ** he could not agree with 
all that it contained !" 

At the houses of the gentry, during my child- 
hood, a well-known Clergyman whose parish 
was on the sea-coast, went out with other neigh- 
bours to dine. He had made this compact with 
his coachman, yiz. that on going to dinner par- 
ties, they should or might become tipsy alter- 
nately. When it was the Clergyman's turn to 
be sober, he mounted the coach box, and drove 
the carriage ten miles home. His wife and the 
coachman being inside. 

During all this state of things, many Clergy- 
men could be heard to warn their scanty audience 
fl;gainst the sin, the eternal danger, of attending 
a " Dissenting chapel." 

But light, heavenly light, had beamed from 
those condemned sanctuaries over England. 
Wesley's movement had quickened the ener- 
gies of the Independent and Baptist Churches. 
These three great religious bodies, holding 
equally the fundamental mystery of the Holt 
Teinity, of man's redemption through the in- 
carnate Savioite, his regeneration by the Holt 
Spibit, had already enlightened our middle 



BET. JOmr CHAJtLESWOBTH. 21 

classes, and our poorer classes, throughout our 
country. May their light never go out, till in 
union with that which shines from the Episco- 
pal Church of England, they blend into the 
millennial dawn ! 

"We need all these great Gospel teachers for 
our land, for the world at large. They are all 
sending out " light and truth" to the wretched 
heathen. Like the four angels standing on the 
earth's four comers, and holding back the winds 
of judgment, tiU the spiritual Israel is gathered 
in; so may these four messengers of mercy 
stand on the world's remotest comers, as the 
angels whom " the Sok of Man shall send forth 
to gather His elect." 

One Church, secured by the civil power in its 
ascendancy, failed, and could not but fail to 
evangelize our people, or to set on foot the 
Woeld's salvation. The vain plan of a com- 
pelled " uniformity" is now as much abhorred 
by Churchmen as by Dissenters. The outward 
(pretended) uniformity which the great Latin 
and Greek Churches had so long imposed on 
men, was not the religion of the Apostles, To 
be worthy of its name, and of the BEiwa whom 



22 MEMOIB OF THE 

it invokes, religion is the voluntary homage 
which the creature freely offers from his heart, 
upon conviction of that truth, which from the 
reasonable proofs of its Divine origin, has 
satisfied his understanding. 

Israel's camp was four-sided; it moved four- 
square to battle. Let our mystic Israel thus 
advance. Let the Episcopal Church hold its 
forefront place. Let it keep unimpaired its 
Articles of religion, as far as regards the doctrine 
of man's salvation. Those " Articles," best of all 
human summaries, embody " the faith once (for 
all) delivered to the saints.*' To all other 
Churches they lift up the standard of fixed dog- 
matic truth. In Englai^d they have formed 
the test for discovering heresy, whether in Eo- 
manism or in newer sects. 

Let Baptist and Independent " High 
churchism'^ give way, as well as that of Epis- 
copalians. Let aU acknowledge that much of 
their own church-government is of human ar- 
rangement. Let the true disciples of Christ 
in each of these sections, '^ esteem others better 
than themselves ;" let them love that heathen 
world, which in its misery gasps for rehef, more 



BET. JOHN CHARLESWOBTH. 23 

than their own Episcopal or Independent polity; 
by love compacted, their phalanx would be ir- 
resistible, " terrible as an army with banners'' 
of heavenly love and faith. 




n 



24 XEMOLK OF Tax 



PART III. 

Short yoTiCB of thb Mixtstrt of Mr. 
Charlsswosth.— What is an Apostolic 

MlHISTRT? 

Ab far as the infoimation giTen me bj firiends, 
and mj own obserration goes, Mr. Charles- 
worth was most successful in doing good by 
bis Tisitation of the poor, wbo looked to bim as 
tbeir pastor. Of all pastoral work, tbis frequent 
visitation of a small flock is generally speaking 
the most difficult, tbe least successful. 

Tbe tendency of many Ministers, long resi- 
dent in a small parish is either to over-yisit and 
thus to worry their people : or, after years of 
repeating the same truth, (however kindly,) to 
the listless company who so often hear their 
Sunday teaching, to give up all fiirtber visits, 
unless in time of great sickness or on a death- 



BET. JOHir OHA.BLESWOBTH. 25 

bed. The patient, quiet, persevering method 
is the rare attainment. My friend seems to 
have had that happy science. He could visit 
often the same cottages and farm-houses. 
During thirty years of ministry how often 
inust he have done so ! Tet he did not over' 
visit his people. That is to say, the manner 
and the spirit with which he reasoned on, or 
pressed the heavenly Truth on men, was not 
wearisome or dictatorial, but gentle and judi- 
cious. 

Many must have been the old labourers who, 
from total past neglect and their inability to 
read, seemed unable to take in a new idea. 

To such he had to speak "here a little, 
and there a little." But he stayed at Plowton 
long enough to see a new generation grow up, 
whom in childhood he had taught to utter 
prayer and to repeat verses of Holt Scbip- 
TUBE, while they drew from his kind teaching 
in the Sunday-school their earliest, brightest 
thoughts of the ever-blessed Savioub. 

The general method of instruction which 
he used, (as I understand from those* who knew 
him,) was more strictly private and individual 



26 MEMOIB OF THE 

tlian is ugual. He was a man of peculiarly 
delicate feelings ; and lie judged rightly, that 
the poor man has delicate feelings too. Do 
not Ministers frequently err and do mischief, 
when they single out a man or woman in the 
middle of a company, and ask them searching 
questions about their souls, before others^ 
Would they take this course while speaking to 
a party of the well-dressed, in a parlour ? Do 
not some Ministers thus reprove parents in 
presence of their children? Mr. C. knew that 
in order to press the solemn interests of the 
soul upon a man's heart, private converse is the 
only method. Even in the case of people 
dangerously ill, or dying, he always preferred 
to speak alone with them. 

Does not the wise physician often send away 
all friends and attendants from the sick room, 
that the sufferer may more fiilly open to him 
all his symptoms ? 

Herein, I believe, mainly rested Mr. C.'s 
influence with the people t the delicacy and 
respect with which he treated them. He was 
soon welcomed in the farm-house and the 
cottage. His cheerful courtesy, the absence 



BEY. JOHN CHABLE8W0BTH. 27 

of all stem and gloomy and oyer-bearing 
manner in him, soon opened every door and 
every heart. 

When he thus sat by their jSresidid it was 
the friend reasoning with friends, the father 
with children. 

Had you stepped in unawares, you would 
have seen and heard nothing of what is called 
** exciting." In my own view, these were 
meetings of apostolic simplicity. The teacher's 
calm but profoundly earnest manner, as he read 
by the cottage candle's light a few verses from 
Scripture ; his delicacy in discerning and treat- 
ing different characters; the prostration of his 
soul in prayer ; the love that clothed all his 
warnings, all present, you felt, must have bowed 
to, must have felt—" lliis friend is a heaven-sent 
messenger to us." It was something better 
than " excitement." It was the deeper, more 
solemn conviction that the humble minister of 
our Savioijb Chbist, beamed with light re- 
flected from His love ! What a Church, what 
a world should we have, if all ministers were 
like him! 

I speak of what must have been thought and 



28 MEMOIB OF THE 

felt in Flowton fifty years ago. In our own 
days, controversy, greater knowledge, and the 
criticism of " Preachers," are more or less 
everywhere. I have reason to behove that 
after he left them, most of his Parishioners re- 
mained in the Established Church ; though in 
many other villages, half the people have left it. 

But, even if half his hearers had lefb the 
parish-church ministry in his time ; from what 
I knew of him, I believe he would have mis- 
spent no time in urging their return to it. 
Provided that their souls drank in living truth 
at the Methodist or Independent Chapel, I 
believe he would have said : " Stay where your 
souls most prosper." He believed that his own 
Church was not infallible, nor the "only 
Church of Christ in England." 

His courtesy to the poor man always struck 
me as proof of his right views and feelings. 
He did not open the poor man's door as a right, 
nor force his visits (as some do) at inconvenient 
hours upon them. He was polito to them — ^the 
poor : while he never held the rich " in respect, 
because of advantage." He did not speak only 
of religion to his people ; their earthly wants 



BET. JOHK CHASLBSWOBTH. 29 

and sorrow were inquired into ; according to 
his power, he Kelped them in sickness and spe- 
cial distress. I think I see him, setting out 
for Flowtoit, in his homely gig, one of his 
affectionate children with him, food and medi- 
cine stored for the destitute and sick; a 
pattern of the firiendly and simple Village 
Pastor. 

In the pulpit, Mr. Gharlesworth's teaching 
was not of an order to excite or arrest ; his 
power of illustrating truth was not lively ; his 
learning was not very profound ;* nor was his 
reading, even of theology, very varied or exten- 
sive. But he did study most deeply — ^the 
Bible ; and when his refined and delicate mind 
(elevated by the Holt Spibit), drew thoughts 
from that treasury for the teaching of his family, 
or of the friendly circle, you felt his deep dis- 
cernment of spiritual truth. His remarks were 
yiot of a common-place or conventional character; 
they spoke of previous prayer and meditation ; 
and that by communion with God, he had 
'* fetched his knowledge from on high.'* Calm, 
but profoundly earnest was his manner as he 
♦ See Appendix, No. L 



30 MEMOIR OF THE 

thus sat teacbing ; genuine love of tliose whom 
he addressed, and holy reverence for the truth 
he taught ; these have won their way to many 
consciences. Is not such the teaching that 
sinks into the heart with abiding power ? does 
not its voice re-echo in the soul long after the 
speaker has passed away? So methinks the 
"waters of Siloah that go softly," despised 
and refused though they often be, because out- 
wardly they rush not onwards with impassioned 
eloquence and brilliant light, will soften man's 
rocky heart, when the cataract of vivid preaching 
often over-leaps that heart, and leaves it as 
unbroken as before, just moistened with the 
spray of passing emotions. 

In the pulpit Mr. C.'s teaching was not of an 
order to dazzle or powerfully arrest. He had 
neither a vivid imagination, great fluency of 
speech, nor originality of thought : no command- 
ing voice or manner. His object was, according 
to his knowledge, and heartfelt love of the truth 
on which he was discoursing, calmly to press it 
toith persuasive tenderness on his village flock, in 
the plainest words he could use. Who can then 
doubt the solid good that such teaching, carried 



BET. JOHK CHABLESWOBTH. 81 

on for 80 many years, must effect, when the 
beloved speaker's whole life agreed with the 
heavenly truth he taught? Does not the 
" Sermo Perpetuus" of such a life, breathing of 
holy love and genial kindness, always bear un- 
disputed witness to men's consciences of the 
beauty, the goodness, the fitness of such a re- 
ligion to convert and bless us ? 

Does not many a preacher who is cleverer, 
more eloquent and more argumentative, fail per- 
manently to influence those hearers who inti- 
mately know him, because some worldly motive 
is seen to run through his conduct or conversa- 
tion ; some temper is unmortified, or too great 
a sense of his own importance is uppermost. 
And would not many good ministers of common- 
rate powers in mind and learning, be more use- 
ful teachers, did they take example from Mr, 
Chableswobth, and not seek to fly above their 
natural level, but simply speak " what they have 
seen and handled of the word of life" ? (1 John i. 
3.) The labour used in trying to become some- 
thing that we are not, is no where more observed 
or unsuccessful than in ministers of Chbist. 
Simplicity should be vmtten on their foreheads ; 



32 MEICOIB OP THS 

for what is simplicity but simple truth, truth in 
the matter spoken, truth in the manner of its 
delivery? Without such simplicity, religion itself 
is made to wear an artificial, an unnatural aspect. 
His whole view of the pastoral office and 
authority was that of the Apostle. "We 
preach not ourselves" (our dignity or our learn- 
ing) "but Ghbist Jestts the Losd, and ourselves 
your servants for Chbist's sake,*' not ourselves, 
your prieits to intercede for you, not ourselves 
who " have dominion over your fidth." 

In thus remarking upon Mr. C.'s style of 
ministry, it is profitable to appeal to the 
" Word of God "—and to ask therefrom, what 
is Apostolic Ministry ? 

We have in the New Testameih? three 
epistles that especially refer to pastors and 
bishops (or overseers) of the churches. 

Bules are laid down respecting the character 
and qualifications necessary in such ministers. 
Amongst the requisites named, I do not find 
great intellect or high logical power; varied 
general learning, or eloquence. This is the 
more striking, because the miraculous gifts, 
which might have stood in the place of learning 



BET. JOHK CHABLBSWOBTH. 88 

and eloquence, are not in the epistles said to 
belong to ordinary elders, such as Timothetts or 
Titus were to appoint " in every city." (Titus i.) 

Unblemished purity of morals, and heartfelt 
reception, and open confession of Gospel- 
truth, with a certain ability of teaching it; 
such only are essentials. — (See 1 Timothy iii. 
1-13. Titus i. 6-9.)* 

To all these high requirements my revered 
friend answered. He, though endowed only 
with the abilities that most of us possess, was 
truly an Apostolic Bishop or Elder. 

The end to which these qualifications of an 
Elder brought him, is thus expressed, " Holding 
fast the faithful word as he hath been taught." 
(Titus i. 9). 

Naturally we may regret that he, and all good 
men of ordinary abilities like him, have not 
greater power of arresting men's attention to 
DivnfE truth ; but we may more regret that so 
few hearers can value truth, when it is spoken 
to them in meekness and faith, for its own sake, 
as well as for the sake of him who does his best 
to deliver it, and whose life is the best comment 
* See Appendix, Note H. 

D 



84 



MEMOIE OP THE 



on its reality aud beauty. "We cannot but still 
more regret that so many amongst us, long 
instructed in Divine trutb, require what is 
called " first-rate preaching" on every Lobd's 
day. What has all our former teaching taught 
us, if we cannot now stand in a measure, alone ? 
Our's is almost as great dependence on the 
" preacher," as the more ceremonial and ecclesi- 
astical worshipper's dependence on the ** priest." 
**What style of preaching have you at 
churck?" I asked lately of a veteran Christian 
lady. " I go there for the prayer*," was her an- 
swer. As much as to say, "I go to praise, to pray, 
to worship." She had come to the vestibule of 
heaven, to adoee. The preacher has by his 
ministry led us onward, he has helped us 
towards the Atoning sacrifice, the Mercy throne. 
But accepted, forgiven, through Chbist, seek- 
ing to *•' glorify Him with our body and spirit ;" 
our going to the house of prayer is chiefly to 
hold adoring communion with the " Etebnax, 
IirriBiBLB, the only Wise, our Saviotte." We 
are waiting for that state which wiU be Adoba- 
TiON in perfection ; prayer, praise, loving awe, 
and endless service. We are thankful for the 



BEY. JOHN CHABLSSWOBTH. 85 

plainest instruction that the Minister of ordi- 
nary ability gives us. The calmest aspirations 
of devotion we enjoy in the simple village church; 
when the Minister ^r^y* the prayers, and when 
we hear him speaking the plainest words he can 
to ** the poor and unlearned." Delightful we 
find that contrast to the closely packed church 
or chapel in Londoit. There being admitted 
as a favour, and put into some distant pew, we 
look around for a moment, and see no poor bre- 
thren ; the G-OSFEL seems to have put off its 
pristine grace and beauty. " To the poor the 
Gbspel i» preached." We are glad to leave the 
aristocratic temple wherein we enjoy; no .frater- 
nity with mankind. The churches are built by 
the poor man, but not /or him. 




36 MEKOIB OF THS 



PART IV. 
Mb. C.'s Sesidbkce at Ipswich. — ^His La- 

BOITBS NOT CONFINED TO FlOWTON. — ^ItS 

Neighboitbhood. — ^The obeat Eeligioits 
Societies.— Bemabks on the Bible So- 
ciety — Its gbeat Eesitlts.— The Inspiba- 

TION OF SCBEPTITBE ITS BaSIB. — TbANSLA- 
TIONS OF THE BiBLE. — UnITT OF TbITTH 
AMIDST VaBIETT OF VbBBAL ExPBESSION. 

But could such a man as Mr. Chablebwobth 
be shut up in little Flowton ? Such a nook 
would haye stunted, and at last deadened his 
energies, could he not have done good to souls 
in other places. 

The " love of God shed abroad in the heart" 
is the love of man — of our brother — of the 
whole world. The poor inhabitants of villages 
near ELOvnioN were as ignorant and neglected 
as those of Flowton itself. He could not, as he 



SET. JOHir CHABLBSWOBTH. • 37 

traversed any of these Tillages, like the Priest 
and Levite, " pass by" unheeded their people 
half dead in sin, as if they were not his " neigh- 
bours." That heavenly " oil and wine" which 
had healed and revived his own soul, he had in 
store for them. 

During his constant drives and walks in that 
district, he became known to the people of se- 
veral villages, Bubstall, at which place he 
rented a house for some time; BBiiMFOBB, 
having a larger population; and the smaller 
parishes of Elmsett, Oefton, and Sokebsham. 
The news that there had come to Elowton a 
man who was in earnest, and who preached 
from his heart, began to draw hearers from 
those places. This by degrees led Mr. C. to 
pay visits to such poor people as went from 
those villages to ELOwroif church. In process 
of time, any other of the poor who wished ta 
see. him, he visited according to his ability. 
Nor was he for many years interfered with, nor 
offence taken at this good man's " irregularities" 
by the Clergymen to whom nominally those 
parishes belonged. They would not hinder his 
doing acts of pious love which they could not, 



88 MEMOIR OF THE 

or would not do. Only one case of angry op- 
position occurred ; it soon gave way before his 
gentle and calm bearing ; lie made no enemies. 

For about a year Mr. C. beld the curacy of 
Blaeenham, a parish not many miles distant 
from his own ; but when he saw more fully into 
the darkness of Flowtoit, though the joint 
incomes of the two Ministries were inadequate 
to a married Clergyman's wants, he threw up 
Blakenham, that he might not seem to lessen 
his work in and near Flowtow. 

No one we think now defends the old terri- 
torial system of a parish. To proportion 
Ministers to population is the only rational or 
scriptural plan. 

At the "Eeformation" of religion in Englait]), 
it was the doctrine of the primitive Faith that 
was restored. The details of primitive Church 
discipline, order, and government, amidst all 
the civil convulsions that rent Englaiq), were 
never fully considered, much less restored. 
Had discipline been restored, one active Minister 
might have been appointed to two or three 
small neighbour-villages; But such adaptations 
are now impossible — ^we need not discuss them. 



KEY. JOHN CnARLEBWORTH. 89 

The system of " family livings," the permission 
to buy and sell the incomes of advowsons, and 
the^absence of all power to choose and adapt 
Clergymen to parishes, whether by the Bishop 
or the people, laid all discipline prostrate. 

Mr. C. virtually ministered amongst three or 
four villages, while he received payment for only 
one. But his heart, like the hearts of all who 
truly believed in Christ, travelled beyond a few 
villages; it embraced the World. Had the 
faith of Chbibt re-awakened among the holy 
men, whom, in youth, he had known or heard ? 
Had such as Venn and Newton, Bomoine and 
Scott, Cecil and Cadogan, amongst the Clergy, 
rekindled the light P Had the truth pervaded 
England from hundreds of Nonconformist 
Ministers' lips ? Charlesworth in the glow of 
youth, saw and gave his full heart and strength 
to join the messengers of mercy to mankind. 
Without delay, he set himself to help forward 
the great Missionary efforts that he had seen 
arise, for the world's salvation. Was it the 
first great ordinance that the ascending Be- 
DEEMSB left as His Church's privilege and duty, 
" Preach the Gospel to every creature ? 



40 MEMOIB OP THE 

When he was eleven years old, Carey, the 
heroic pioneer of modem missions, had founded 
that of Serampore in India. "When Mr. C. 
was eighteen years old, the *' London Mission- 
ary Society" had started. It was then found 
that Episcopal Clergy and Trinitarian. DiBBent- 
ers had common ground of vital faith enough, 
on which to kneel together ; together to pray, 
and invoke God's blessing upon a world, two- 
thirds of which laid in darkness. To that dark- 
ness the so-called Catholic Christian Church had 
not only left it, but that Church had added to the 
darkness, by setting up images and unwar- 
ranted ceremonies before it. The Protestant 
(so-called) settlers in Africa, or merchants, 
soldiers and sailors who went to the East 
Indies, not only carried their vices there, but 
indulged them more freely before the heathen. 
All had surely been done, that man could do, to 
hinder a Savioue's kingdom from spreading ; 
and for 1500 years we may say, that the 
world's enlightening was prevented by an apos- 
tate Church. But to return ; a few years 
later, godly Churchmen rallied, and a " Church 
Missionary Society" was formed, nominally 



B£Y. JOHK CHABLESWOBTH. 41 

to eyangelize " Africa and the East/' or half 
the world. Mr. C. together with a venerable 
Clergyman who still survives him, were foremost 
in forming the East Suffolk Association in 
aid of this enterprise. He was one of its Se- 
cretaries for more than twenty years. The 
arrangements necessary in order to "get up'* 
public meetings for this object, the frequent 
letter- writings, with other details, take up much 
of a man's time and thoughts. He gladly 
undertook what must often be called the menial 
or drudge-work. He was delighted to do the 
work that is little seen, and makes no show, 
but without which no such undertakings can 
go on. 

But the great '' Bible Society" may be said 
to have pre-eminently engaged his heart. This 
effort to supply mankind with that STAin)ABD 
of DrviNB Truth by which preachers and 
Churches were to be tried, was, in his view, all- 
important. The work had only reached its 
eleventh year, when he went to Elowtoi?. It 
was still encountering great opposition, great 
misrepresentation. Eor one great error into 
which the Society fell — ^namely, the printing of 



42 MEMOIB OF THE 

Apocryphal books witb the Inspired books — it 
was not at first blamed as it ought to have been. 
" Dissent from the iOstablished Church was en- 
couraged by it," was the chief accusation against 
it, by Ecclesiastical opponents. They should 
rather have struck at its real fault, viz. the 
allowance of Socdoaks in its Committees of 
Management, and even (in one instance at least) 
as conductors of a translation. Too many of 
us also were greatly led astray, in supposing 
that the inspired "Woed would (as it were) 
sanctify all the means by which it was circulated. 
The too great haste with which the Bible was 
translated into distant, and hitherto unknown 
languages was another error to be justly feared. 
But my friend, like the vast majority of its 
supporters, was absorbed in the great idea, 
that the Sceiptfbbs of God had been un- 
chained, and would enlighten the world. It was 
as if the Apostles were speaking on earth 
again ; it seemed as if the day of Pentecost had 
returned ; it was as if the predicted an»el of 
the " Bevelation,*' were seen beginning his final 
flight, to " preach unto all nations," and in all 
" tongues." (Eev. xiv. 6.) 



BEY. JOHN CHABLE8W0BTH. 43 

The trouble, the letter-writing, the con- 
stant journeys to towns and villages, which 
Mr. C. took npon him, to tell people of 
this new wonder of mercy, were no weariness, 
but the joy of his heart. In company with a 
brother Clergyman, or more often with a non- 
conformist brother Minister, did he travel over 
great part of East Suflfolk; and when they stood 
up amidst their village hearers in a bam, or 
at the large room of an inn, they spoke with 
fresh inspiration of heart, such as led Bethle- 
hem's shepherds to run and tell their neigh- 
bour-townsmen that heaven had opened, angel 
choirs had sung the Sedeemeb's advent, and 
the " glory of the Lobd" had come down. It 
was the world's new birthday, when the Gospel 
re-awoke from its sleep of nearly two centuries. 

The majestic doctrine of the Bible " o^spibeb 
by Gon the Holt Ghost," was the foundation 
on which Mr. Chableswobth rested. So was 
it with all those who fervently laboured for its 
universal spreading, in its unmutilated wholeness, 
He, and they, had no misgivings, no mental 
reservations on the subject. Their feet stood 
therefore firm ; and persevering in their hea- 



4A MEliOIB OF THE 

yenly mission, witb what a harvest of blessing 
have they helped to enrich the world ! Above 
two millions of the Sobiptfbs, whole or in part, 
sent out bj the great Society over the earth, 
during last year I More than 800,000 copies 
sent forth by the American Bible Society in the 
same time! Translations of this book made 
into more than 150 tongues ! Nearly sixty mil- 
lions of copies sent over England and all nations 
by one Society, in sixty years ! 

"Well may we praise God that such men have 
lived, and believed His Woed. True; we 
have dark clouds over England's sky. Semi-infi- 
del Clergymen, and Nonconformist theologians. 
University Professors, a Dean, and a so-called 
Bishop, have taken the hideous task of throwing 
discredit upon those older Sobiptubes to which 
the Etebnal Wobd appealed, as to Divinely 
inspired Truth, 

Mr. C. and most of his generation just lived 
to hear these bowlings of the last " Aniiehritt,** 
as he roars from the abyss. But they passed 
away from " the evil to come," the more dread- 
ful judgment that is coming to try our great 
nominal profession. Upon the same grounds 



BEV. JOHN CnABLESWOBTH. 46 

on wliich tbe ^^Bisliop" and the other infidel 
writers reject mystery, miracle, and all that 
cannot be understood or explained to their 
satis&ction, so ere long shall they, or their 
consistent foUowers reject or trample on the 
higher mystery and miracle of the New Tes- 
tament: the mystery that Etebititt cannot 
solve, yiz. the love of Oon in Chbist to tbeir 
and our guilty souls. (Ephesians iii. 11.) 

" Blessed" then *' are the dead who die from 
hefuaeforth,'' (Bev. xiy. 13.) i,e. at the egression 
of the **wild beast" in his last forms of "blas- 
phemy." (Bevel. 3dv. 9, 10.) 

Prom his parents' teaching, as well as that of 
the Church in which he had been baptized, he 
had embraced the Book or " Bible" as through- 
oat the Inspired written " "Word of God," that 
is4;o say, that the original books and letters 
which Prophets and Apostles wrote by the 
Holt Sfibit*b teaching, were in every word 
equally dictated by that Spibit, and therefore 
all infallibly true, 

"Whatever or how many had been the mis- 
takes that scribes and copyists had made in 
writing out the Sacred Books; whatever or 



46 HEHOIB OF THE 

how many the errors that men had made in 
translating Hebrew and G-reek into Latin, or 
into modem tongues ; the primitive Churches, 
and the Seformed Church of England, which 
followed their testimony, had taught him to 
reverence those versions as substantially and 
virtually the Inspieed Word. All those mis- 
takes and miscopyiugs inseparable from hu- 
man agency, had not been permitted to miscopy 
or mis-translate, as to invalidate the narrative 
of one fact f or the statement of one doctrine. 

Mr. C. as a student, must have known that 
in their quotations of Old Testament prophe- 
cies, the Apostles and Evangelists had oftener 
drawn upon the Gbeek Translation made by the 
*' Seventy," than from the Hebbew manuscripts 
of the Old Testament. He must have known 
that this G-reek version, or " Septuagint," tried 
to conform the Greek idiom to the Hebrew 
idiom, and thereby not always to make their ver- 
sion bare and literal, but to translate the spirit 
of the Hebrew into Greek, as the latter was 
commonly spoken.* 

It follows, therefore, that the Apostles and 
• See Append!?:, Note HI. 



EEV. JOUN CHARLESWOBTH. 47 

Evangelists held 1)otb the HEBBsyr and Obesk 
ScBiPTFBES to be equally " the Word of G-od. 
It follows, that in their judgment, Vital Tbuth, 
the one truth, might be delivered through dif- 
ferent verbal channels, and various forms of ex- 
pression. Eor the same reason it follows, that 
our EiTGLisH translation of that Divine Book, 
and all translations of it into other languages, 
that have been made bj faithful scholarship, 
and reverent faith in the original, though with 
all the imperfections inseparable from man's 
efforts, are still the Wobd of Gon, just as in 
the Apostles' days, the Seftfaoint or Gbeek 
translation, was as truly as its Hebrew original, 
The Scbiptfbe, Would not a just view of 
this unanswerable Fact, tend to soften many 
hard controversies upon the subject of inspi- 
ration. 

Speaking strictly, there is no such thing as 
an unerringly perfect translation of any book 
from one language to another. To hold the 
contrary view, we must suppose that a miracle 
of DrviNE power was worked to prevent every 
scholar from misunderstanding or misrepresent- 
ing the exact import of every Hebrew or 



48 HElfOIB OF THE 

Greek word, when he tried to turn it into 
French or English. Neither to the Jewish nor 
Christian Church was promised such miraculous 
help. To the former were " committed" or " put 
in trust the oracles of God." (Eom. iv. 2.) 
As long as that Church was their chosen depo- 
sitory, we never read that the Jews violated 
the trust, by wilfully corrupting the older 
Hebbew text, in the copies that were made 
from it. 

And so with the general Christian Church 
justly called in the **39 Articles" a "witness 
and keeper of Holt writ." Nor was that trust 
betrayed, until image veneration and the secon- 
dary " worship" of Maby as a necessary media- 
trix, left that Church, as a body, in Apostasy. 
They foisted into the canon which the early 
Churches had universally received, books that 
neither those Churches, nor the ancient Jewish 
Church had acknowledged as Divinely in- 
spired.* 

At the " Eeformation," or what I would 
rather call the " Eestoration" of primitive truth 
by our Fathers of the faith, the Old Testament 
• See Appendix, Note IV. 



BEY. JOHK CHABLBSWOBTH. \49 

(canon was restored* and tlie books of human 
workmansliip expunged. 

We must ever regret the gross inconsistency 
which led our '' Beformers'' to enjoin the read- 
ing of all these human books during many weeks 
of each year, instead of canonical Scripture. 
And we are sure that every devout Clergyman 
shrinks from reading in public the puerile fable 
't of " Bel and the Dragon," or the disgusting tale 
of'SusANiirA." 

" Gould I omit the reading of these uninspired 
books, if, as a Clergyman, I had daily service ?" 
is a question that I once put to the late beloved 
Archbishop of Canterbury. "No, Sir,*' was 
his reply. " Could I from the pulpit explain to 
the people the falsehoods and unsound doctrines 
contained in these human writings?" ''No, 
Sir." 

" Then I cannot read in the desk what I can- 
not endorse from the pulpit." 

Surely, one of the most obvious changes 
of a revision of the Liturgy (if ever effected) 
must be to expunge the Apocrypha from its 
calendar. 




50 MEMOIU OF THE 



PART V. 

Mb. C.'s Eesidence in Suffolk. — ^Acqttain- 
takce with eminent mlnisteks ; espe- 
CIALLY WITH THE EeV J. P. NOTTIDGE. — 

Some Notice of Me. N.'s Chaeactbb 

AND MiNISTBT. — ThE EeV. Db. MaBSH. 

— The Eeys. John and Edward Bick- 
ebsteth. 

To resume our memoir. During his long 
Suffolk residence, many were the excellent 
Ministers whose friendship Mr. Charlesworth 
enjoyed. Among these I can speak more in 
detail only of one ; because I had the advantage 
of knowing him well. Mr. C. had the privilege 
of intimacy with a man whom I must ever vene- 
rate as one of the most bright and unalloyed of 
saints ; I mean the late Eev. J. P. Nottidqb. 
He was the Eector of St. Helen's and St. Cle- 
ment's, Ipswich, until 1846. Here was intellect 



BEY. JOHN CHABLSSWOBTH. 51 

of no common order. Here was a mind stored 
with information ; Here was deep reading, and 
still deeper thinking. But the heart was so 
filled with the greatest of objects — ^the glory of 
the Infinite Jehotah, in the counsel and aecom- 
pliahment of man's eternal happiness : so was his 
heart satisfied, enlightened, elevated by the 
majesty of heavenly things, that he had lost all 
the petty vanity of self-importance ; he had lost 
(if he ever had it) littleness and narrowness of 
mind. No sacerdotal dignity ; but the truest 
dignity of a soul reposing implicitly on the 
Almiohtt's word ; no jealousy of other Minis- 
ters or other religious bodies could live within 
him. Naturally, I suppose his keenness of dis- 
cernment might have lashed your faults with 
satire and severity. But all this " natural man'' 
had given way to dignified gentleness. He was 
fitted by his natural abilities, by his deep study 
of Holt Sckipttibe and of several of our deep- 
est theological writers, to take a leading position 
amongst the neighbour Clergy on such occasions 
as Public Meetings, or in smaller meetings at his 
own house. The wearing feebleness of body 
under which he 90 long lingered, must in part 



52 HEMOIB OF THE 

have kept him from much publicity ; but I be- 
lieve that his genuine hunulitj, his superiority 
to men's admiration, was the main preventative. 
I can truly say, that every one looked up to 
him while he looked down on no one. 

We used to have pleasant social meetings for 
prayer and reading of Scbiptube at his house. 
We read some portion of Scripture together, 
verse by verse ; and all were free to give their 
opinion, or ask a question. At one of the first 
meetings that I attended three or four clergy- 
men were present. Some one put a question 
to him personally, and asked his opinion upon 
a point rather disputed. " Oh, don't refer to 
me," he said, " I am no Pope here." 

His tenderness, calmness, and gentlemanly 
delicacy of manners, were very attractive to the 
young. How delightful was the privilege that 
I enjoyed so often in meeting and hearing him ! 
The charming walk I had to take from Wheb- 
STEAn into Ipswich; the brightness of the 
Sabbath morning ; the distant clashing of all 
the. church bells as it swelled upon the gale into 
sacred harmony : then the quiet devotion of the 
Morning Service that followed ; all was crowned 



BET. JOHN CHAJtLESWOBTH. 53 

by the deep remarks on Ditdste truth by Mr. 
Nottidge ; — all combined to fill the heart with 
peace and gratitude, to stimulate its advance- 
ment in all holy duties and alSections. I trust I 
may never lose the impressions that his ministry 
wrought. Bright scenes for a young beginner 
in the Christian race ! Would that they had 
led the writer to a higher attainment of god- 
liness! 

I had often the pleasure of spending part 
of the Sunday afternoon with him between the 
Services, at the secluded house which he had 
built. Never did we then part without his 
offering to pray with me. No matter of deep 
private interest could you mention to him that 
he did not with tender sympathy remember in 
his prayer. 

His teaching from the pulpit was of an 
order unusually fitted to strengthen the soul 
that was harassed by temptations of unbelief; 
to pour balm upon those afflicted by death in 
their households, or long pining sickness. The 
gradual growth of inward holiness through the 
DrviNB Spibit he knew how to press upon us 
in both its aspects: man's earnest prayer, 



54 MEMOIB OP THE 

watchfulness, and walking in the light, the 
guidance, and comfort given by God. 

Mr. N.'s power of teaching the young soldiers 
into fields of conflict where he had so fought 
himself, I used to feel, in contrast with the more 
elementary teaching of Mr. Simeok at Cam- 
BHiDOE. But no comparison can be drawn 
between men as diflferent in their * 'gifts " as they 
were in the mission assigned to them. 

As we should say, what a loss did thousands 
of poor people and tradesmen of Ipswich sus- 
tain who could not hear or get benefit firom his 
teaching 1 His largest church, and that of one 
of the largest parishes in Ipswich, was seldom 
half filled. " I never had the misfortune to be 
a popular preacher," he once said to me. At 
the time I thought that, in this remark, he 
rather made " a virtue of necessity ;". but I be- 
lieve he meant that, had his intellectual powers 
been joined with strong health and a command- 
ing voice, he would as a Preacher have been 
listened to by crowding hundreds, rather than 
by scores ; and that self-exaltation might have 
been his danger. Much as you regretted the 
few who attended his churches, and the very 



B£V. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 



55 



few who seemed able to appreciate his deep 
teaching, you could not wonder at the failure. 
His appearance was singular. A figure un- 
usually thin, almost spectral, with a face pale as 
white marble, was seen slowly mounting the 
pulpit steps. He often held the railing, as if it 
were an effort to walk up. You felt that he was 
suffering from pain or languor. He was often 
clothed in a travelling cloak, whose collar stood 
stiffly up round his neck, and even round part 
of his face ; while the head was crowned with 
a black silk coif. On the cloak was somehow 
induced a thin Master-of-Arts gown. Through 
constant physical depression his voice, which 
had never been powerful, was generally too low 
to be well heard by any who were not near 
him. His sentences were long, and made more 
long by a languid utterance. Ofben a stop 
occurred in the midst of a sentence when there 
was no stop in the sense. By the poorer classes, 
who need clear, if not loud, and well- sustained 
articulation, such utterances could not be in 
general understood, even if his language had 
been plainer. The mere critical hearer, who ex- 
pects everything to be fluent and consecutive. 



56 HEHOIB OF THE 

became wearied. Only the few, who loved a 
deeper truth for its own sake, and for the care 
and study which the Pastor had given to it, 
rallied about him. His very languor of body 
and his effort to instruct, threw a sacred interest 
over each sermon. Such hearers never went 
away unfed. 

In the latter years of their Suffolk residence, 
Mr. NoTTiDGE became doubly endeared to Mr. 
C. and his family by his fatherly kindness to 
the youngest son. That youth had never given 
sorrow to his parents. Erom the delicacy of 
his health he had been educated chiefly at home. 
The father's holy and cheerful temper, spirit 
and life, the peaceftd Christian home, spread a 
heavenly influence over him. By a course of 
home education many minds are enfeebled ; the 
energy of Faith, however, in his Saviotie had 
braced his heart, and made him resolve to be- 
come a minister of the G-ospel. 

Mr. Nottidge watched over his young friend's 
opening knowledge of Diytne truth. In long 
walks that they took together, he enriched and 
enlarged that knowledge by his vivid remarks, 
while his whole life was the best pastoral charge 



BET. JOHN OHABLESWOBTH: 57 

to a candidate for ministry. In the truly valu- 
able " Memoir of Mr. Nottidge," by the Eev. 
Charles Bridges, many of Mr. N.'s most in- 
teresting letters were written to young C. One 
of the most edifying letters that he ever wrote, 
or that I ever read, was sent on the occasion of 
this young minister's early death to his afflicted 
parents. It will be inserted in another part, 
and will give the truest idea of the writer's 
moral and spiritual character. 

During his Suffolk residence, Mr. C. also 
enjoyed the friendship of two eminently holy 
men, — the Bev. W. Marsh, for many years 
Sector of St. Peter's, Colchester, and the 
Eev. John Bickersteth, Eector of Acton, near 
Sudbury. Dr. Marsh's friendship and affection 
were renewed towards him in his latter years. 
The following letter, written by Dr. M. to my 
friend, is a specimen of the cheerfulness and 
freshness of the writer's heart, as well as of the 
usual aptness and point of his language. It 
was written long after he had left Colchester j 
after many years of labour in Birmingham and 
in Leamington — years in which the friends had 
few opportunities of meeting. 



68 MEMOIB OP THE 

It is to be hoped that an adequate memoir of 
this heavenly-minded minister will soon be 
written. 

" Beckenham, May 12th, 1837. 

" My deab Chableswobth, 

" Friendship can last for 41 years, and more. 
Christian friendship soon begins, and never 
ends. Thanks for your kind enquiries. A sharp 
attack of erysipelas kept me three months with- 
out the power of reading or writing ; since then 
I have been a prisoner. There was some diffi- 
culty in restoring sleep, and during sleepless 
nights I found the benefit of remembering 
Scripture. John xiv. 15, 16, 17, which may be 
compared to the four rivers of Paradise, that 
watered the whole garden of God, were very 
refreshing to me. 

" I am now wonderfully restored as to the . 
danger of the attack. MayHeb. xii. 10, 11, be 
fulfilled in me, and a little more fruitfulness ac- 
company a little more time ! If I might choose, 
I should like to be found in the spirit of the 
Publican, offering the prayer of Stephen, and 
exercising the faith of David. — Ps. xxxi. 5. 

•'Though I cannot ascend a pulpit, I am 
making my way through a press. Some thoughts 



BEV. JOHN CHABLESWOETH. 69 

on the diflference between worldly diversions and 
rational recreations I have sent to Nisbet. I 
shall be glad indeed if any firiends be drawn 
from vanities to realities, by a Divine blessing 
on the little work. I should be glad to hear 
that you were better ; but we must look for- 
ward to the accomplishment of 1 Cor. xv. 42, 
43, 44, and we may expect it as a free gifb, be- 
cause Jesus died and rose again. 

" Peace to you and yours. Ever yours most 
affectionately, 

(Signed) "W. Maesh." 

Of the Eev. John Bickbbsteth, I can only 
say that during a short visit which I had the 
pleasure of paying him, in or about 1826, he 
appeared a model Clergyman. His entire hu- 
mility, his devoted labours amongst the poor, 
struck you the more forcibly, as you remem- 
bered the high distinction he had gained at the 
University, and the refined -cultivation of his 
mind, which entitled him to eminence in so 
many worldly paths. 

With the well-known brother of this good 
man, the revered and beloved Edward Bicker- 
steth, a lasting friendship was formed. Mr. B. 



60 MEMOIB OF THE 

visited Suffolk frequently on behalf of the 
Church Missionary and Jews' Societies. 

One of Mr. B.'s last sermons, breathed with an 
earnestness that bespoke his approaching end, 
was preached in Mr. Charlesworth's church 
in London. A short notice of it by one who 
was present, and who was well able to appre- 
ciate its solemn beauty, will be given after- 
wards : a short notice of himself in the next 
Part. 




BET. JOHN CHABLE8W0BTH. 61 



PAET VI. 

Mb. Chaslieswobth goes to thb Ukiyebsitt 
OP Cambbidob. — The Eey. C. Simeon. — 
Some Notice OP hisMikistbt. — Its gbeat 
Efpbcts. — ^Aitecdotes op him belated by 
Mb. C. — ^Notice op Eev. E. Bickebstbth. 

Why my friend waited so many years before 
he went up to the University, I am not informed. 
It must have been six or seven years after his 
appointment to Elowton that he went there 
no doubt for the purpose of studying theology 
more fully. Erom all that I can gather, it 
must have been from 1820 to 1823 that he 
" kept his terms," and took his degree as B.D. 
In our time of undergraduate ignorance, we 
used to look down with a ^ind of contempt 
on those who " came up " to College as " ten 
years' men." Their large flowing sleeves, as 
we thought, covered their incapacity to pass 



62 MEMOIR OF THE 

one of our examinations. We did not under- 
stand that their ftdler age, their fuller know- 
ledge of DiviNB truth, of themselves, and of 
the world, were among the chief requisites for 
Sacred Ministry ; while half the youths who 
take possession of our parish churches are so 
ignorant of the great controversies in religion, 
and have such limited knowledge of Scripture, 
that their principles can hardly be said to be 
fixed. 

At Cambridge he came under the ministry 
of that remarkable man, Chables Simeon. The 
latter was at that time (1822-24) almost in full 
vigour, and in the supremacy of his spiritual 
position as the greatest teacher in the Church 
of England. His mission, as he felt it, was to 
teach races of future Clergymen; to be the 
father of fathers. Eleven hundred Clergymen 
are said to have learned the living Gospel's 
power — the majesty and glory of a Savioub's 
atonement as the one central object of a minis- 
ter's preaching — from Simeon's lips. He, by 
the mercy of Gon, had reached a height which 
might be well culled an Episcopate or Primacy 
through England, by no smooth or compromis* 



BEY. JOHN CHABLE8W0BTH. 63 

ing process. He bad stood nearly alone during 
many early years of his pastorship. For the 
Truth's sake he had really stood persecution / 
not only the coarse ribaldry of vicious young 
men, but the keener scoffs of a learned Uni- 
versity, in the midst of which he dared to 
preach what they professed in the " Articles of 
Beligion," and in the Ordination Services. 

The first time that I saw Mr. C. officiating, 
was in Mr. S.'s church. During his undergra- 
duate course he occasionally assisted there in 
reading the Liturgy. He also helped, on other 
occasions, in the church where the Eev. J. 
SoHOLEPiELD ministered. 

Though acquainted with Mr. Simeon, I be- 
lieve that Mr. C. never became, or could be- 
come, intimate with him. No one can feel a 
deeper love or veneration than myself for Mr. 
S.'s memory. His words opened the way for 
heavenly light to shine upon my heart. 

His style of preaching was perfect, as it re- 
gards written sermons. That is to say, it was 
weighty matter, condensed within moderate 
limits, and spoken with the most weighty man- 
ner, by voice and look. It was matter that you 



64 MEMOIB OS* THB 

felt he had prayed over, and was now delivering 
to you in the same spirit of prayer ynth which, it 
was written; it was matter without pompous in- 
troduction, laboured imagery, tedious repetition 
or needless divisions. But each arrow was taken 
from its proper place in the quiver, polished to 
its point ; and though the holy man had be- 
stowed his best care upon it, you saw that there 
was no overstrained art, but that all ended in 
simplicity, and you grieved that the sermon 
was so short. 

We must look upon Mb. Simeon as the chief 
friend of Isbael in this country. Certainly, 
during half his long career of ministry, his 
appeals from the pulpit and platform, together 
with those of Mabsh (his constant fellow-tra- 
veller) did most to rouse churchmen to further 
this apostolic mission ; viz. : a distinct Gospel 
witness to the Jews. "To the Jew first." 
And it is doubtfiil whether "the Society for 
Promoting Christianity among the Jews" could 
ever have reached its height of public sympathy, 
but for the labours of these two noble workers. 
When you heard Mr. S. pleading for the long 
outcast people, it was as a &ther or mother 



BET. JOHN CHABLE6W0BTH. 65 

pleading for tlieir orphan children. Nor must 
we forget the important service he rendered to 
truth, by contending against what was often 
falsely called the spiritual sense of prophecies, 
bearing on Isbasl's future history. In the 
'* Everlasting Covenant " made with Abbaham 
(Gen. xiii. xvii. xxii.) he saw that " the Land " 
and "the Nation'' of Israel, were as much 
integral parts of the DrviNS promise as was 
the advent of MBssnn itself; and that as all 
the predicted punishment had literally fallen on 
that nation, so should their return to the Land, 
and the Nation's conversion of heart to believe 
on Him " whom they had pierced" (Zech. 
xiii.) be literal also. " Thy people shall be all 
holy; they shall inherit the Land for ever." 
(Isaiah Ix. 21.) 

And how really was the great missionary 
enterprise in India helped on by his constant 
prayers and efforts, we know from the admir- 
able " Memoir and Correspondence " which 
Canon Cams has given to us. His many 
letters to Thomason in India, and afterwards 
his letters to Bishop Wilson show that the 
heathen lay upon his heart. 



66 MEMOIB OF THE 

The undoubted general effect of his ministry 
was to produce humiliation of soul on account 
of our sin, adoring love to Him who had freely 
forgiven it, undivided surrender of our hearts to 
holy obedience. 

His spirit of noble munificence was only 
bounded by his means of giving. His " Trust " 
that he founded for the purchase of advowsons 
in many of our large towns, wiU long perpetuate 
the " sound doctrine " which for sixty years he 
had taught — as long as trustees are faithful to 
their trust. 

And then the chief glory of his great mission. 
JSe remained at his post. He changed not. 
He sacrificed all thought of a domestic settle- 
ment. He was thus concentrated on his heart's 
object, viz. : the instruction of successive races 
of University students in the only faith. And 
so having ** served his generation " as none else 
ever did at Cambbidqe, he died at his post. 
Nor over was seen, or probably can be again 
seen, the veneration and love with which a 
whole University followed his funeral to the 
sublime chapel of King's College. 

To Mr. C. such a ministry must have been the 



RBV. JOHN CHAKLESWOBTH. 67 

best " course of theology ;" the " composition " 
of sermons by Mr. S. the best model, if not 
imitated servilely. 

It does not appear that he became intimate 
witli Mr. S. From an anecdote that Mr. C. 
used to relate of the latter, as well as from my 
own personal observation, I don't think that 
Mr. S. paid much attention to men like our- 
selves, of ordinary abilities, and with no prospect 
of high academic distinction. It was natural, 
and right for him to desire, that young men of 
decided piety should not only be industrious in 
college studies, but that they should take high 
degrees in mathematics and classical learning. 
That he should not encourage a train of reli- 
gious idlera or mere saunterers in study who 
wished- just to " get through " the Senate house, 
was highly commendable. But when we of the 
ordinary class could not rise to eminence, we 
needed encouragement in the doing of our best. 
Mr. S. rather looked down (as I thought) on 
these feebler and slower minds. 

May we venture to say that he had faults ? 
"We will call ^^^m failings. 

He had (to use a paradox) strong weaknesses, 



68 MEMOIB OP THE 

and ways of speaking and acting, that from 
their peculiarity became offenflive. My friend, 
though twenty years older than most of us, was 
nervous, n,nd feared this holy man. He used to 
relate ^ith graphic humour one of his first 
interviews with him. I hope it was not his 
introduction. There were in the chancel of 
Trinity Church, certain pews which ran 
nearly the whole length of the chancel. One 
set of these pews touched on the vestry door. 
It was Mr. Simeon's custom, as the service 
began, to take his seat in one of these long 
pews nearest to his vestry. Soon after going 
to Cambridge, Mr. Charlesworth, unconscious 
of this custom, and not expecting to come in 
contact with one whom he so feared, took his 
seat a few minutes before service in this same 
pew, and, unfortunately, in that particular 
place. There he remained, his head bowed 
upon the pew desk. Had he consulted his 
safety, he would have passed to its extremity 
and left room for seven or eight to follow him. 
Suddenly, he felt upon his shoulder a *' broad 
hand " (as he called it.) A voice like the sound 
of a bassoon, groaned to him, " Go on further, 



EET. JOHN CHABLESWOETH. 



69 



sir." He had but a moment in which to turn 
and look upon the person thus speaking ; he saw 
an eagle eye flashing its glance upon him, and 
he moved on a few feet ; he readjusted himself^ 
and again bent downwards as the service pro- 
ceeded. In three or four minutes time, the 
''broad hand" was felt upon his shoulder. 
The voice was heard again in its deep solem- 
nity, *^ Move on, sir — mahe roomJ'^ Again — a 
rustling — a hurried advance up the long pew— 
but no further looking round on his pursuer. 
It was unnecessary to enquire who he was. 
An attempt to recompose himself. Again — a 
louder groan — " Go on to the end, sir" — Mr. C. 
quite quickly responded. Again, not long after- 
wards a like seizure — ^a like groaning command to 
** Move on, sir;" but of a more imperative kind. 
One foot onwards — and poor Mr. C. could go 
no further — ^he was boarded up. There was no 
escape, as we now have it in our ''open- 
benches" system. Mr. C. was hedged in by 
six gownsmen and Mr. Simeon. I did not ask 
my friend, ** what effect the sermon had after- 
wards?" 
Surely all this disagreeable scene might have 



70 MEMOIS OF THE 

been spared to a new comer and a devout wor- 
shipper, if Mr. S. had but courteously whispered 
on his first entrance, " Please to go on to the 
end of the pew, as several undergraduates will 
come in." The effect of such discourtesy on 
many young men, would have been to stop their 
further attendance on Mr. S.'s ministry. He 
was often impatient, hasty, rude, and even sati- 
rical. I believe that he truly felt and mourned 
over such things in himself. 

On another occasion, some years later, the 

two men met in a church at Ipswich. Mr. S. 

was there to preach for the " Jews' Conversion 

Society." Mr. C. read the Liturgy. To the 

vestry both ministers proceeded before the 

sermon. The evening was piercingly cold. 

Before entering the church, both ministers had 

put off" their winter coats, in those days called 

''Spencers.'' Each minister had fixed his 

spencer on a peg. The pegs were near each 

other. One tallow candle's light was all that 

shone there. Mr. C. having put off his sur- 

plice, intended to return to the church and 

listen to the sermon; but he shivered with cold, 

and went quickly to his spencer. At that 



EEV. JOHK CHABLB8W0BTH. 



71 



critical moment, when you would have thought 
one great, idea must have filled the preacher, 
Mr. S. turned suddenly — saw Mr. C. advancing 
to and laying hold of his (Mr. S.'s) spencer. 
In the candle's dim flare poor Mr. C. had mw- 
taken the pegs. Mr. S. rushed at him, laid hold 
of his coat collar, and with a voice and manner 
that the narrator alone could copy, called out 
to him, " Sow dare you touch my spencer, sir f " 
It was as if the pleader for pity on Israel 
transferred for the time to his Gentile brother 
one of the Gentile charges against Israel, viz. : 
"ar6 you strictly honest, especially in the ex- 
change of clothes .^" After this, Mr. C. left the 
vestry, not to hear the sermon, but to go home, 
wondering and lamenting the injury that so 
devoted, holy, and long-tried a minister might 
do to religion by such unworthy manners. 

How can we explain it? To sit on such a throne 
as he held for forty years ; to look down from it 
for sympathy and veneration from a third part of 
English churchmen ; to be consulted by several 
Bishops ; to receive the visits of noblemen and 
ladies of rank ; was it to be expected that a man 
should be so looked up to, and not to think 



72 HEMOIB OF THE 

mucli of his self-importance ? not to be impa- 
tient now and then if people did not meet his 
exact requirements just at the moment ? 

I believe that no Apostle had such trial to 
bear as the trial of great popularity. So I be- 
Heve that especial humiliation before Qod, and 
a view of their own depravity and nothingness 
are needed bj great popular preachers, just as 
were needed patience and enduring faith to 
enable an Apostle to bear unpopularity in 
many Churches, or heathen ** dragon's " perse- 
cutions unto death. 

Innocent peculiarities of those whom we love, 
rather endear those friends to us than put them 
at a distance. They stamp a person's identity, 
his individuality, as much as do his voice or his 
figure. We may smile at such peculiarities; 
our Mends do the same at our own, but they 
suggest no unkind thought. 

In our revered pastor's case the peculiarities 
were certainly more frequent and marked, both 
in his manners, words, and gestures, than could 
be commonly seen. 

The deeply serious and the ludicrous were 
sometimes joined in a way that tried our com- 



BET. JOHN CHABLESWOSTH. 



78 



posure of face to the utmost. On Friday eyen- 
ings those men of the Uniyersitj who attended 
his church were invited to take tea with him, to 
hear his remarks on Scbiptitbe, and to ask him 
questions. At the beginning of each new 
" term " many new visitors attended. Mr. S. 
was intensely ** particular " as to the care and 
preservation of the furniture in his rooms. One 
evening, a tall and awkward " ten years' man " 
appeared at the door, anxious from the country 
to pay his respects to Mr. S. Bis name given 
out by the servant, Mr. S. rose from his music 
stool (his constant seat), and went to meet the 
new comer. Looking upwards, and beaming 
with his peculiar smile, taking the man's hand 
in both his own, " My dear friend, peace be 
with you!" (as with a benediction.) Then, 
turning his eye downwards, earthwards, " Have 
you scraped yov/r shoes f * On another occasion, 
a younger and more daring undergraduate had 
ventured on a morning visit, and alone. The 
streets were wet and dirty. On his appear- 
ance, no benediction, no welcome ; but with the 
tone of a drill-serjeant to an undisciplined 
recruit — ^he was told, ** Si/r^ you have passed one 



74 



MEMOIB OF THE 



scraper and three mats;** a fact to which his 
guilty shoes fiilly testified. The young man 
retreated without an answer to a distant door- 
mat. Sometimes, after an affectionate welcome 
to a visitor, Mr. S. would almost convulse us by 
asking some of us, "What is that man's Name ?" 
Catastrophes were frequent at the tea meet- 
ings. Not only did nervous "Freshmen" 
clatter tea cups and saucers, but worse things 
occurred. Some made the fire-irons descend 
on the hearth with an alarum that made all eyes 
converge on the culprit. In the large room 
hung a tall handsome pier-glass with a marble 
table fixed under it; legs of gilded carved 
wood, and carved festooned ornaments attached. 
The room was filled with benches without 
backs. Some of them were put close to the 
festooned table and mirror. You must in that 
case sit bolt upright all the time of the meeting, 
or risk leaning against this table. Generally, 
Mr. S. gave us early warning of the danger ; 
but some could not take a warning. One 
evening, in the middle of a conversation, a 
crack was heard — a gownsman had leaned back 
— a festoon was broken! From his music 



' 



K£T, JOmr CEAItLKSWOBTHp 75 

stool, on which he could wheel round in & 
moment to answer questions, he revolved, cried 
out in a piteoue tone, " Sir, what hare you 
dons? that glaed and table were a beloved 
brother's present to me I they are invaluahie /'' 
We did not know which most to pity of the two 
Bfuffei^rs. Why, we thought, could not Mr, S, 
receive tis in his parish echool-rootn, rather than 
in his drawiDg'Toam ? 

His heart orerflowed with loye to men, but 
he eridently did not &ee the importance of 
manners; the almost incalcnlable importance 
of snmll eourieMA ; he did not understand that 
in our eamestnesB and hurry to do some good 
thing, we must look upon our fellow-creatures 
SB well a a ourBelves, and not " shoulder them out 
of the way " while we are hastening to our 
But holy and great mioiBters are not 
gyi great in mind : and many who venerated 
^^ "^ as a prophet in the pulpit, had no desire 
^^^^ -^'^ him in the parlour, 
^^V 4fii printed aU the sermons that he 
^^^» *4 ; and to print a work, entitled, " Scr^ 
^^^H i m the wholit Sj.'t'iptiirBSj" was a task 
^^m ^^h. the gre^^ - ' t titolugians might have 



0£ LQt! 




7(5 



MEMOIB OF THE 



shrunk. Our beloved pastor, however, did not 
shrink from either task. Whatever we may 
think of their author's wisdom in publishing 
twenty-one volumes, the " Horse HomileticsB " 
will always record Mr. Simeon's well-balanced 
comprehensive views of Scripture doctrine, so 
equidistant from violent extremes ; while they 
all lead us on to practical holiness. It were 
well if some judicious hand might put fortb ttoo 
volumes of selected discourses from out of these 
one-and-twenty. 

I cannot forbear adding some ftirther notice 
of the beloved Edwabd Bickebsteth. His 
many writings upon practical religion have 
made his name known throughout these islands, 
JS'orth America, and in all our Colonies. 

He preached spiritual truth by these books. 
They found their way into the houses of our 
middle classes and gentry. Personally, he waa 
known through England as the untiring tra- 
velling Secretary of the Church Missionary 
Society. At the meetings which he attended, 
the frequent repetition to which such a speaker 
is called never seemed to damp or deaden the 
holy fervour and freshness of his piety. And 



BEV. JOHK CUAHLESTfORTH. 77 

who could hare met him in private intercourse 
but was edified by his deep self-abasement, his 
large charity, his Christian courtesy, his beam- 
ing zeal for the exaltation of a Satiovb ? 

His power of reading, noting what he read, 
and so arranging it as to condense it iato matter 
. profitable for others, was remarkable. For a 
man, who, during twenty years, was always 
*' on the road " travelling over England, such 
reading and arrangement seemed impossible, 
especially in those bygone days of "stage 
coaches." But when I heard him say that he 
could read all day inside those vehicles, I ceased 
to wonder. What was to most travellers time 
lost, was gain to his calm and vigorous mind. 
Hence his later writings of a more elaborate 
character — ^his "Practical Guide to the Pro- 
phecies," in which he showed that he had read 
or consulted nearly every prophetic book that 
had been written for three centuries past. 

At last he withdrew fipom his more public 
labours. A halo of heavenly love seemed to 
gather round him. The near coming of his 
glorified Savtoub to ''take to himself his 
great power, and to reign over a restored 



78 MEMOIB OF TH£ 

world," (Eevel. xi. 17), irradiated his soul. 
That Saviour's final prayer, that all His saints 
might visibly be " One," in order that " the 
world might believe " the Gospel of salvation— 
that prayer took possession of his soul. 

The scheme first planned in North America 
for the furtherance of manifested or outward 
union amongst the true disciples of Cheist, was 
adopted by Bickersteth, by Marsh, and a 
few other large-hearted clergymen. They met 
English (Trinitarian) Dissenters for mutual 
confession of sin, for prayer, for the provocation 
of one another " to love and to good works." 
(Heb. X. 24.) For a time it seemed as if more 
of union was coming on earth. But this bright 
vision only flitted before us, to disappear. The 
great outward seal and pledge of brotherhood, 
the communion of the Lord's supper. Clergy- 
men might not sit down to with Noncon- 
formists. Baptists of the more exclusive class 
would not join Independents or Churchmen. 
Many Christians would not join the " alliance." 
It went too far. It compromised their prin- 
ciple of Church-membership. Many would not 
join because it went not far enough. The 



EEV. JOHK CHARLESWOETH. 79 

" alliance" survives : but of late years difference 
and hostility, rather than brotherly kindness and 
respect for each other's consciences, have opened 
their widening chasm between the brethren. 
Still, whatever the failure of their scheme, 
the reward awaits those, who, like Bickersteth, 
Marsh, and Charlesworth, had " purified their 
souls in obeying the truth, through the Spieit, 
unto unfeigned love of the brethren," (1 Peter 
i. 22) viz.: "Blessed are the peacemakers; 
for they shall be called the children of God." 
(Matt. V. 9.) 

Long before an " Evangelical Alliance " had 
been set up, Mr. C. had acted it out during his 
ministry. The cumbrous mechanism of a " so- 
ciety," with committees, lengthened addresses, 
and money-gatherings^ he needed not to teach 
tim the lesson that " through the Spirit he 
had purified his soul " to learn. Brought so 
often into intercourse with godly Dissenters at 
Bible Society meetings, and there hearing 
" Christian Union " so much commended, he 
did not negative that principle when the meet- 
ing ended. He did not on the following day, 
cross the street to avoid shaking hands with 



80 MEMOIE OF THE 

a dissenting brother, nor give him the digni- 
fied nod of toleration. He visited Dissenters. 
Even amongst the " Society of Priends," 
whose differences are the widest from our own, 
he found many who, as humble followers of our 
DrviNE LoBD, exemplified His Gospel in their 
lives. With some of them he kept up an inti- 
mate friendship. 

The Eoman Church fairly boasts that 500 
Anglican Clergymen have gone into her commu- 
nion during the last thirty years. We know that 
these were mostly young Clergymen. Having 
never been " grounded and settled" in heart or 
mind " in the faith," a few months of trial upset 
them. When as many more Clergymen have 
left the Established Church, (and there is every 
reason to expect it) ; when scores of England's 
noblemen and gentry shall revert to what is 
called the " faith of their forefathers ;" when a 
third part of England acknowledges a sinful 
man to be the "vicegerent of heaven upon 
earth," and a once sinful woman to be " Queen 
of Heaven," and a necesaary co-operator in re- 
demption; — when the Antichrist of unsanc- 
tified human intellect shows " great signs and 



BEY. JOHir CHABLESWOSTH. 



81 



wonders," (Matt. xxiv. 24, and 2 Thess. ii. 9) ; 
when both enemies join in their last war upon 
the "faith;" then it may be that Christians 
who now stand widely apart, will honour and 
" receive one another, as Chbist hath received 
them to the glory of Qod." (Eom. xiv. 7.) 
Perhaps they wiU acknowledge that their differ- 
ences do not lie in the seven great Unities, 
(Ephes. iv. 3.) the seven pillars on which 
" Wisdom hath buildedher house," (Prov. ix 1.) 
They rest mainly on two questions, the exact 
order of Chwrch Oovemmenty the exact manner 
and time at which Baptism was administered. 
By most writers, Eoman Catholic and Protes- 
tant, it is admitted that these two points were 
not exactly defined in the New Testament. It 
follows that we who hold that Book to be the 
only infallible guide, cannot legislate or dogma- 
tize upon these points with more certainty than 
the ScBiPTUBE warrants. Por we disavow the 
power of infallibility for a Church, as for an 
individual, except where the Divine Spibit 
has plainly spoken. 

If this view be correct, it must follow that 
that Divine Sptbit left these two questions 

G 



82 HEMOIB OF THS 

inientumally undefined ; and it follows that in 
casting out brethren who do not exactly agree 
with our views of Baptism and Chnrch-Q-ovem- 
ment we presumptuously arrogate to ourselyes 
the power of making terms of union which the 
Holy Spieit did not make.* 



• See Appendix, Note V. 



BET. JOHir OHUtLBSWOBTH. 83 



PART vn. 

Mb. C.'s Interest nr the Abolitioit of 
Slayeby. — Eeplections oit the Dim- 
crLTiES OP that Stetjqglb. — England's 
continued Complicity with Noeth Ame- 

BICAN SlAYEBY. — InTEBCOUESE WITH THO- 
MAS Glabeson, — Some Notice op that 
Eminent Man. 

" Fob this purpose tbe Son of God was mani- 
fested, that He might destroy the works of the 
devil." (1 John iii. 8.) To put down all cruelty 
and oppression over man by his fellow man, 
was therefore one of Cheist's simplest dictates. 
Ghbist's Gospel in its reality had only to spread, 
and man would "love.his neighbour a^.himself." 
(Luke X. 27.) But to what height had man's 
innate wickedness risen, when, under the light 
of a Sayiottb's mercy. Christians, so-caUed, 
could carry on that combination of all crimes 
against their fellow men, the Slaye Tbade and 



84 MEMOIB OF THE 

Slavbet ? Tet so it was, that after 1800 years 
of professed G-ospel truth, Protestant as well as 
Boman- Catholic nations vied with each other to 
convict the " accursed thing" as we may justly 
call it. But " Beligion" in its reality, had re- 
appeared. "Eeligion" means "the binding 
back" the " re-attachment" of lost man to his 
God, who is " love" and thereby the binding 
back of man to man as his " brother" in bro- 
therly love. The impious system of Slavery 
must then fall. But T^hat a death struggle 
would it make before that fall ? 

All efforts to uproot great evOs, have ever 
been successfully carried on by a few great and 
daring minds, that went ''before their age." 
They persevered against the fiercest opponents, 
and against the advice of friends, who would 
have stopped their rapid march as ** inexpedient." 

So it was with Claekson and Wilbeetoece, 
and a few others. They simply looked at the 
fact, that the Slave system was forbidden by 
every Q-ospel precept. In the faith of Him who 
gave that Gospel, they went undauntedly to the 
conflict, and carried Englaitd with them ; we 
may say -they have now carried all European 



BET. JOHN CHA.BLESWO»TH. 85 

(Christian) nations with them. And though no 
cry of national repentance for its wickedness in 
upholding Slavery as a ** domestic institution" 
has sounded from the " United States ;" though 
the deli?7erance of Slaves from their chains was 
only put forward as a war-cry for rousing the 
Slaves to fight against their masters ; we must 
see in the dreadful four years war that have 
been waged, a Dirno; retribution on man's ini- 
quity. If ever we may presume to assign a 
cause for righteous vengeance, here surely it 
may be done. Slavery must soon fall in Ame- 

BICA. 

Abhorrence of Slavery may be said to have 
been drunk in by my friend with his first breath, 
from his excellent father. The latter had in- 
terested himself in the anti-slavery movement. 
When, in his own county, meetings in order to 
promote an interest for the Negro, were to be 
got up ; and when Mr. Clarkson was to visit 
Nottinghamshire, old Mr. Charlesworth was 
actively at work. 

Mr. WiLBEBPOBCE (with whom he was also 
acquainted) used to say, " that he coiJd always 
reckon on old Mr. C. for three counties, and 



86 HEMOIB OF THE 

that the latter kept three counties in readiness 
for him." 

" Mr. C.'s father was also one of the Share- 
holders who joined in purchasing the district 
of Si£BBA Leoke as a settlement for freed 
Africans." 

When therefore in Suffolk, my friend found 
himself stationed within a few miles of Thomas 
Clarkson, he must have rejoiced in the hope of 
intercourse with such a man. He became 
Glarkson's intimate friend; and that intimacy 
must have told importantly upon his own after 
life. 

Before speaking more personally of Clark- 
son, I maybe excused for making some remarks 
on the difficulties with which he and others had 
to grapple. We may not measure them only by 
the powerfrd opposition that our own " West 
Indian Proprietors" made in our Houses of 
Parliament during so many years. We must 
rather measure them by the self-satisfied " re- 
ligion^ ^ with which so many in our country 
justified slavery on what they called a " Serip- 
ture warrant'^ The indifference to plain 
moral duties with which a self-satisfied religion 



BET. JOHN CHABLBSWOETH. 87 

may co-exist, delayed for a long time B^gland's 
extinction of slavery, though England had 
abolished the " trade." And can we say that 
England is delivered &om this self-satisfied 
state ? How is it, that, during the long years 
in which our merchants have climbed to rapid 
wealth through the slave-grown cotton of 
North America, no pulpit in Manchester or 
Liverpool has dared to expose to them the 
guilt of their complicity with slavery in all its 
wickedness ? No national voice of repentance 
went forth from England, mourning that our 
fathers had helped to set up slavery in the 
States; and that we having freed the slaves 
in our own colonies, went on as long as we 
could using slave-labour by proxy, and en- 
riching ourselves at the sacrifice of all moral 
precepts, encouraging other men to commit the 
sin which we in profession condemned as inde« 
fensible ! 

Not only no repentance by England, but all 
who are acquainted with our cotton-manufac- 
turing district, must have observed that the 
only mourning expressed at public meetings 
and by newspapers at the hideous war between 



88 KEMOIB OF THE 

the " States," was a mourning that the supply 
of (slave-grown) cotton had stopped ; that 
many of our cotton mills must be closed, and 
that hundreds of thousands of our '' operatives'* 
must for a time lack employment, or only re- 
ceive half their former wages I Not a single 
public meeting took place that I can hear of 
during all this time of carnage, to invoke the 
mercy of God upon North Aicebtca, or that 
the " sword," that ** most sore judgment," 
might return to its scabbard! Peace was 
longed for — if it might send to our shores the 
millions of cotton bales which the unpaid, un- 
merciful, unjust labour of slaves could produce. 

Surely over our door might the words of 
Jeremiah be justly written, "Thine eyes and 
thine heart are not but for thy cavefau9nes4*^ 
(Jer. xxii. 17.) 

Surely the Southern slave-holder must have 
often, and deservedly, laughed to scorn our re- 
ligion with its two faces ; one of " brotherly 
love " for England, another permitting theft 
and rapine across the Atlantic. 

Surely too, we, as a nation, ought to have 
seen in the distress and perplexity that came 



EEV. JOHN CHAELESWOBTH. 



89 



over our cotton district, some droppings from 
that thunder-cloud which burst so terribly 
upon the " States." 

So lax are the views of Slavery that are still 
held in our country, so false the doctrine that is 
drawn from the perversion of Holy Sceiptuee, 
that I believe these reflections are fiilly war- 
ranted. 

Mr. G. had not learned to say what was so 
often said, even by clergymen in his day: 
" The slaves are well fed, and tolerably clothed. 
Do not disturb them with notions of liberty, 
teach them the Gospel; they can with it live 
and die as happily as any free man." We 
needed no proof of this. A faint glimmer of 
heavenly light was no doubt sufficient to carry 
the .poor slave through all his miseries; while 
the " minister " who had fifty-fold more know- 
ledge than that slave, and had taught that slave 
that he was his master's " chattel," that he had 
no DrrarB right to call his wife or children 
"his own," that minister probably lived and 
died without peace or joy. Nor, like many who 
could not or would not, face the radical ques- 
tion, •* What is our duty according to the 



90 XEXOIB OF THS 

Dinsx win?" Nor wis Mr. C. misled by that 
hjpocritieal ooreiiiig of am, ^ Beligion Bhines 
most bristly in the sobnuBsion of slaTes to 
their masters; St. Peter and St Paul stamp 
with a DiYm approbation such a submission 
by those under the yoke." (1 Tim. Yi. 1, 1 Pet. 
iL18.) 

The answer to be giren to saeh pretext was a 
question : *' Did the West Indian or American 
shiYeholder work shives in order to prove to the 
world how able is Diyute £iith to support 
martyr-slayes who would rather die under their 
oppressors than rebel against them ?" 

The slayeholder abroad, and the English 
merchant who received his unlawful produce 
here, knew that each worked the slave for np 
religious object, but to make the largest gain at 
the smallest cost. 

. Mr. C. and the band of Ghnstian "aboli- 
tionists " knew how to distingoish things that 
differed. It was one thing for the Apostles to 
enjoin on slaves who were under heathen 
masters the duty of submission ; it was another 
thing for men who professed the name of the 
LoBD Jestts Christ, and thereby pledged 



BEY. JOHir GHABLXSWOBTH. 91 

themsi^lyes to " keep His commandments ;" it 
was another thing for such men to re-estahliah 
the heathen system of slavery, after that the 
spirit of Qospel-truth had gradually put it 
down ; yes, to set up a worse than the old Pagan 
slavedom; for the horrors of a "middle pas- 
sage" were no part of the- latter. 

As well might Christians revive Polygamy, or 
absolute despotic power in a ruler over his 
people, because those " Institutions" prevailed 
in tbe Apostles' days. 

The noble, though small band of godly men 
who began during Mr. C.'s time their great 
work of unchaining the oppressed, felt that 
theirs was a duty not only to the slave, but to 
his master. The Slaveholder must be taught 
that his sin was incompatible with the favour of 
God, or the inheritance of heaven; and that 
from these the " man-stealer " was as distinctly 
shut out as were " idolaters " or " murderers of 
fathers or mothers." (1 Tim. i. 9, 10.) 

Above all, it was their duty to a DrviKB 
Masteb, that they should clear His religion 
from the charge which heathens abroad and 
infidels at home had thrown upon it; viz.: that 



92 MEMOItt OF THE 

the negro was a being bom with capacities in- 
ferior to those of white men ; and that, conse- 
quently^ the moral obligation of treating him as 
a brother was lowered, if not destroyed ; that 
African millions were doomed by a Diyike 
ciirse to perpetual bondage. 

It was in 1807 that our country gave up the 
" trade" (properly speaking,) the purchase of 
African prisoners from the kings who had taken 
them in war, and the transfer of those victims 
who survived the sea voyage to our colonies. 

After this, nearly forty years of untiring 
struggle passed before religion triumphed, and 
England put an end to slavery throughout her 
colonies in 1883. 

Mr. C. lived through that struggle — accord- 
ing to his ability, and in his own quiet way, he 
took part in it. 

Clabksox, that august friend of man, who 
that ever saw him can forget him ? Yet he has 
no biographer. No statue is erected to his me- 
mory in Westminster Abbey, where Wilber- 
force and Buxton so justly find a place. "No 
fitting tablet even is upon the walls of Play- 
ford Church. But his " record is on High." 



BEY. J0HI7 CHABLESWOBTH. 98 

In the churchyard, near to his burial place, 
there is a rude obelisk, with these words upon 
it : " Clabkson, the FfliEin) oir Slaves." 

Surely, though only a few English friends 
helped to build this pillar, they might have 
added to the five words inscription, " Atbica's 
millions, present and to come, join us in this 
tribute, though unasked." 

Most unhappily for us, all his long years' 
correspondence with statesmen, ambassadors, 
and the ministers of other countries; all his 
letters to the Anti-Slavery Society ; which 
must have illustrated the great struggle, have 
disappeared. It is only in his own book, ** The 
History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade," 
that we get authentic details of his labours — 
and these are not prominently named. 

It was after reading one of his early pam- 
phlets, that Wilberforce entered (as he tell? 
us) on the war against Slavery. Through Wil- 
berforce it was that Thornton came forward 
to add his wise counsel, and Macaulay to 
record the &cts that he had witnessed in 
Jamaica as to the slave system. 

Clabkson's appearance was truly majestic. 



04 MEHOIB OF THE 

In height he stood aboTe six feet. His features 
were regular and grand. His £eu» bore farrows 
of long care and conflict. His manners were 
eminently simple. There was no measured con- 
descension or dignitj towards others. When I 
first met him in 1825, at a time when he had 
spent forty years in the noblest benevolence 
towards mankind ; he did not receive you, as if 
he felt himself to be " the great man" to whom 
one quarter of the world would pay homage as to 
its deliverer. But you looked on him as the 
truly great man ; that is to say, the man whose 
mind and time are devoted to the grandest ob- 
jects ; to schemes of world-wide benevolence ; 
the man who fills his place as the servant of the 
Infinite Gob, and whose happiness it is to obey 
His commands by seeking to bless the world. 

Clarkson seemed to you truly great, for be 
could come down to the little. He took you by 
the hand with a fatherly smile ; and he heard 
your questions and observations as if he were 
learning somewhat from you. We know that 
the epithet of ''greatness" is applied to only 
one man in Scripture — to John the Baptist. 
If in anything he was remarkable, it was in self- 



BEY. JOHir CHABLESWOBTH. 95 

renunciation, and the absence of self-importance; 
he was great in humility. " He (the Saviottb) 
must increase ;,but I must decrease." (John iii.) 
John was ready to become as nothing. It was 
sufficient reward to have done his work; to 
have proclaimed " the Lamb of God." 

So, in their measure, it was with Wilberforce 
and Clarkson. They "fulfilled their course" 
like John. They did their work of mercy. They 
quitted this world in comparative seclusion. 

Flayford Hall, so long Clarkson's residence, 
is about four miles north of Ipswich. It 
is certainly one of the most picturesque old 
English homes of East Suffolk. Though pro- 
bably only half its former size, and adapted for 
modem convenience rather than architectural 
" order," it has its ancient moat unspoilt The 
buttressed walls fringed with ivy, and its 
bridge, carry us back three or four hundred 
years. The venerable trees that overarch the 
road which winds along the small domain, give 
it the appearance of a delightful retreat, 

Here Clarkson died, at the age of eighty-six ; 
having outlived all the difficulties and ^een the 
success of his great struggle. Hence his body 



96 UEMOTR OF THS 

was carried, and followed with pious reyereiice 
to the Tillage church hj a few fiiends. Little 
notice did the erent excite ; bu% he had Tindi- 
cated our Blssssd Bedsemsk's Faith from the 
horridest diaige which its fiilse professors had 
brought upon it; tiz. eomplieUy with rapine^ 
oppreuiatij and wuarder. And the daj will I 
believe come, when many of Africa's children, 
regenerated in heart bj that Grospel which 
Clabksok Tindicated, wiU make their pilgrimage 
to Platfobb, and praise GK>d for freedom of soul 
and body as thej bend over CljlBKSOk's graye. 

The following letter, written by Mr. Clabk- 
BOK to Mr. Chasleswobth in 1843, both illus- 
trates the regard in which the friends held each 
other, and the untiring energy with which 
^ The Friend of Slayes " occupied himself to 
the last with schemes for man's welfare. 

" Platfobd, Satubdat Evening, 

" Uik FOfruary, 1843. 

''Deab Mb. Chableswobth, 

" I received your letter, but have been 
so unwell and overdone by business (slavery^, 
that I was hindered from answering it sooner. 
Would you thiok it possible, when you sup- 



BEY. JOHN CHABLEBWOfiTH. 



97 



posed tliat our efforts on that subject were at 
an end, that now on the eve of going into the 
eighty-fourth year of my age, I should have 
been obliged to work eight hours a day for the 
last three years to forward our cause. But 
there has always been something or other rising 
up to call me into action ; such as the case of 
poor Nelson Ha^ket in our Canadian terri- 
tories, and the probability of breaking up the 
beautiful Httle colony to which he fled. The 
10th Article of the American Treaty now to be 
discussed in Parliament, by which the fugitive 
slaves from slavery are in danger of being 
returned to their old masters. The wicked plan 
of going to Africa for labourers of our own 
"West Indian colonies, which may degenerate 
into a new * Slave Trade,* These, and a variety 
of other subjects, have kept me constantly in 
" hot water " by a heavy correspondence, when 
I ought to have coimted in the evening of my 
life to have had some rest. But, God's will be 
done ! I entered into the great subject and I 
must see it out, as far as my exertions can 
accomplish it. 

" I am now going, I began indeed yesterday, 
to set my house in order, previously to my being 
called away to another world. This setting my 
house in order consists, in one instance, of 

H 



98 HEMOIB 07 THE 

looking over my manuscript papers (a month's 
work, at least), and I find many of what I call 
of great value, containing what I intended to 
do, if my life were spared. It appears from 
some of these papers that, after visiting the 
Lascars as before mentioned,' I thought of taking 
up the cause, not of the Lascars only, but of 
sailors at large. Having had an opportunity 
during my journeys on the slave trade of 
aeeing personally some hundreds of them ; and of 
knowing, in fact, all their grievances ; no people 
are worse used. No people on account of their 
great hardship, deserve our compassion more. 
And when we consider them as our Kavy^ the 
defenders of our country, they are entitled to 
the national favour and support. One of the 
papers which fell into my hand, was an essay on 
this subject, to be fulfilled some time or other. 
If I can find time, and my spirits will allow me, 
I shall make the essay complete. 

" With our kind regards, and best wishes to 
your family, 

** I remain, my dear friend, 
" Yours affectionately, 
(Signed) " Thomas Claezson." 

" P.S. I do not know whether you can read 
this, as I am now nearly blind, and no new 
spectacles will help me." 



BET. JOHN CHASLEBWOfiTH. 



PAET VIII. 

FiBST Intboductios" to Mb. C. aijd his 
Pamilt. — His Ebmoval to London. — 
State op His Pabish. — Mb. C.'s vaeious 
Laboubs in London. — The London Citt 
Mission. — His Tounoest Son is Ob- 

DAINED. — ShOBT NotICE OP HiM. — HiS 

Death. — Lbtteb fbom the Eev. J. P. 
Nottidge to his Motheb. 

I CANNOT bring these imperfect sketches to an 
end, without recalling some early impressions 
ofMr. C. 

It was, I believe, in the year 1825, that I 
first visited Mr. C. He then resided in Ipswich ; 
I had afterwards the pleasure of frequent inter- 
course with him, with various intelrals for 
twelve years. His simple manners were most 
attractive, compared with much that I had 
begun to see in the religious world. The charm 
of such manners laid in the evidence they gave 



100 MSMOIB OF THE 

you of a mind at rest with itself, because at 
''peace with God;" of an unworldliness of 
spirit, an absence of selfisli bustle. Without 
dogmatism or party-spirit, you felt that one 
great object shone in all that he spoke of, or 
worked for. I had heard several great preach- 
ers, and met many men of commanding Christian 
influence and attainments. Here, however, was 
to be seen the best of religion as to its practical 
results. The simple Pastor in his fjEonily ; the 
simple manners and habits of that family. In 
how many cases is the influence of a godly 
Pastor weakened, when the villagers observe 
the flippant modem manners, and the showy 
dress of his daughters ? The children, under 
the gentle and even course of treatment, were 
in cheerful subjection ; they were usefully oc- 
cupied. It is a great advantage for daughters 
to have help from such a father in their reading 
and studies, while it was an equal advantage for 
the sons to listen to their mother's teaching. I 
will not say more of her who still survives, than 
that through their long and happy union, she not 
only soothed his often wounded spirit, but kept 
pace harmoniously with all his best eflbrts. 



RET. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 101 

Mr. C. not only forbade books of any known 
vicious character to be read (that which most 
parents would do) but he forbade books of a &i- 
Tolous or trifling character. He forbade (as he 
told me) the ** Newspapers" to his children. 
The ''Becord" newspaper suffered the same 
exclusion. At this I could not wonder; for 
though that Journal shuts out the details of 
loathsome crime, and is so far admissible to 
young persons ; it admits what is perhaps the 
most dangerous of all matter for reading ; it 
publishes criticisms on, and often gives extracts 
from infidel writings. Prom the purest motives 
— ^to warn us of lurking or more daring evil, it 
has been a most £edthful and valuable witness 
for the Truth. But if the question be what 
kind of newspaper is fitted for general " family 
reading?" I cannot think that a publication 
which so frequently deals even with blasphe- 
mous writings, could be put by a wise parent 
into his children's hands. As it regards Minis- 
ters of the Word) the able refritation which the 
** Eecord" often gives to such books, may be of 
great service ; and I think that if there were 
sent forth by this newspaper a separate monthly 



102 HEMOIB OP THE 

or quarterly " Eeview" of books that call for 
Buch criticisms and refutations, it might be of 
equal service to Ministers, while their children 
would escape the danger. 

Such a family, under such truly Christian in- 
fluence, was a new thing for myself to witness. 
It was what a " home" ought to be ; the peace, 
the simplicity, the constant doing of good in a 
quiet way, made up an edifying contrast to the 
mixed emotion that a young seeker for truth 
feels in the " religious" movements of LowDOisr 
life, or at those meetings of the more wealthy 
and ennobled, where, amidst the thick splen- 
dour of furniture and feasting, he can scarcely 
understand what is meant by the ** wilderness 
through which we are passing," or the "enduring 
hardness" as soldiers in the great warfare. 
(2 Tim. ii. 3.) To be in such bewildering scenes 
may indeed to an earnest Christian heart be a 
** wilderness," for with that term perplexity and 
sorrow are identified. 

During all the intercourse that I enjoyed 
with him, I never heard him speak in an unkind 
or excited spirit of any one. I never heard him 
spread an evil report ; I never heard him speak 



EEV. JOHN CHABLB8W0ETH. 103 

even hastUy, much less with apparent irritation; 
I never beard him allude to any slight that 
might have been offered to him. These traitisf 
of character made him unique amongst my 
acquaintance ; I know no parallel with it. 

But the time was come for him to leave us ; 
his bodily strength was giving way. On hearing 
that be was about to quit Suffolk many 
parishioners and other friends presented to him 
a fiurewell memorial of their love and respect. It 
was a clock. Its front was in form of a triple 
arched church window ; in the centre the dial- 
plate, under the side arches two figures, — one a 
Sunday-Scholar with his Bible, the other a 
Slave, kneeling with hands clasped in prayer. 
These were fitting emblems of the great objects 
that filled the Pastor's heart. 

I must not forget another cause of gratitude 
to him. He introduced me to godly Dissenting 
ministers. Having been taught to believe that 
all such persons were fiinatical, Tulgar, revolu- 
tionary, and ill-read, I felt my gentility some- 
what lowered at the first visit which Mr.-C. took 
me to pay to an Independent minister. Thank- 
ful am I since that time to have learned my ow n 



lOi HEMOJR OF THE 

ignonnce, and to have nt at the feet of many 
Buch ministera, men whoee lives and teaching 
have shone through ^Ebgland. Thankful to 
know that thonsands of sndi minist^s, learned 
as well as fervently pious, are instructing masses 
of our people with sound and well balanoed doc- 
trine. I found them not &natical, but wise, calm, 
and argumentative ; not vulgar, for they rested 
satisfied in their high calling ; not revolutionary, 
but ever truly loyal subjects, and praying for 
blessings on "kings, and all that are in au- 
thority." By vulgarity I understand the habit 
of assuming to be what we are not, boasting of 
what we are, and the putting of ourselves out 
of oar places. Almost all the ministers to whom 
I allude show that they possessed fair learning, 
and a power of public speaking, as well as a 
zealous godliness before they were orduned to 
be pastors. 

Ministerial vulgarity would lie in a man 
assuming to be a pastor, and putting forth sucli 
pretensions to others, merely because he had 
undergone episcopal or other ordination. We 
see from centuries of experience that no giift of 
holiness or power is conferred by laying on of 



BEY. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 105 

episcopal hands. 1£ the latter ceremony could 
so avail, then it must follow that every Boman 
Catholic priest, as well as every English clergy- 
man, would thereby receive "the gift of the 
Holy Ghost." As a fact, we know that they 
receive no more than a title, an outward human 
sanction to an office assumed by them worthily 
or unworthily as it may be. And yet on such 
a flimsy foundation how many men call them- 
selves in the " Apostolic Succession !" 

If the New Testament, that is, the Divine law 
given through the Holy Ghost to the inspired 
writers be our law, it gives us no plain promise 
that there could be any " Apostolic Succession" 
in His Church, save that of pure doctrine and 
holy living, together with varied measures of 
power in delivering the Gospel message by 
speaking. 

The good man to whom Mr. C. introduced me 
was no common Christian. The Eev. "W. Horn 
had been Eector of Debenham, Suffolk, for many 
years. From conscientious objections to parts 
of the Prayer Book he had resigned his office. 
A chapel was built for him at Woodbridge by 
many who had received the light of salvation 



106 MEMOIB OF THE 

through his deeply earnest and holy teaching. 
There he closed his ministrj after commending 
the truth, in which he gloried, to numbers of 
attached hearers. 

Mr. C. could honour him, because he seceded 
from his position in the Established Church. 
He could honour conscience, and appreciate 
godly motive. 

Mr. C. resigned Flowton in 1844. When 
sixty-four years old, he found that his bodily 
strength was giving way, and would no longer 
enable him to take the frequent journeys to 
Flowton. He accepted the appointment to a 
London city churcL He left us in 1844. It 
seemed as if the most genial spirit amongst us 
had gone; we also felt that his simple quiet 
ministry would be (as it were) extinguished 
under the cold dignity of that empty pile — 
St. Mildbed's, Bread-street, one of the build- 
ings that public opinion and common sense 
have so long doomed to be removed to an out- 
lying district of new London. On the Lobd's 
Day, as you walk that narrow lane, you hear 
the echo of your solitary footstep. The dis- 
trict is depopulated for the day, except that 



BEY. JOHIT CHABLESWOBTH. 107 

housekeepers and watclimen who are left in 
charge of warehouses and offices keep within 
doors, and do not attend the church, even if 
they be members of the Establishment. 

A few years after his removal to London, his 
son told me that the average congregation at 
St. Mildbed, including two schools, was forty 
people ! That is to say, two schools of ten or 
twelve children each, the clergyman, two of his 
family, the clerk, organist, and pew opener. 
Only ten voluntary adults made up the as- 
sembly. 

But our firiend did not go to London, like 
some disabled officer, to rest upon his '' retiring 
pension." The heart that so glowed to do good 
amidst scattered villages, would glow more fer- 
vently to bless the myriad semi-heathen of the 
greatest city. One of the first things that he 
did, was to ask permission of a brother city- 
clergyman to visit his parishioners for him. 
(The latter was engaged all day in school 
duties, and lived out of the parish.) Being thus 
occupied, Mr. C. resided for some time in the 
rectory-house of that parish, but his own health 
and that of his family, forced him to go into the 



108 VEMOIB OP THE 

outskirts of London. He chose IsLDr&TOK, and 
there remained, with short interrak, till he died. 
He soon became an actiye member of the 
"Tract Society*' Committee, and of "The 
Church Pastoral Aid Society." That Apostolic 
effort, the first to grapple with the irreligion 
of a million, the " Londok Grrr Missiok " had 
been working for about ten years when he lefb 
Suffolk. Would or could all the London 
Clergy, however zealous, penetrate the courts, 
the streets, the dens of sin that abounded in all 
quarters ? Could the Established Church fur- 
nish a su£G[cient body of unordained visitors and 
missionaries, to supply their pLiceP Could 
Nonconformist ministers or their congr^a- 
tions, do the work? If either, or all these 
great religious bodies could do that work, why 
had they not begun it ? We could no longer 
look on LoKUOir's misery without making some 
effort to meet it. We hoped that within the 
various churches, hundreds of godly men taken 
from the small-tradesman class might be found, 
who would visit and teach the poor in their 
dwellings, that a Sayiottb had come; that 
*' God had sent Hnc to bless them, by turning 



BET. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 109 

every one of them from their iniquities." 
(Acts iii.) Our hope and prayer have not been 
disappointed. More than two hundred such 
missionaries visit masses of our most neglected 
people ; iand the good which they do is incal- 
culable. 

Mr. C. soon joined the City Mission Com- 
mittee; for many years he was one of its 
Clerical examiners of candidates for the mission. 

Two years after his removal to London, 
John, his youngest son, was ordained a cler- 
gyman. I have before spoken of him. How 
early, how earnestly, his heart bowed itself 
before the Cross of Chbist, we have seen. He 
resolved to enter the ministry. Disease set in 
upon him; but he persevered. In 1839, he 
went to Cambridge University. In spite of 
increasing bodily weakness, and many breaks in 
his college course, he pressed onwards. He 
tried to furnish his mind with all useful as well 
as directly theological learning. After quit- 
ting college, he sought to stay his threatening 
disorder by wintering twice in the South of 

TBiiNCE. 

We, who saw that pallid face, that weakly 



110 Msacois OF TSS 

body, majIuiTe wondered Uiat lie looked for- 
ward to the Mizustrj. We may have thought it 
eren wrong. Bat who can reaaon with, or try 
tofetteryou^ifiiliealandloTe? '^ Lore is strong 
n death; manj waters eannot qnendi lore." 
(Cant TiiL 6, 7.) And to na who saw his 
wasting form, it seemed that he longed to speak 
a dying minister's testimony to that eternal 
LITE whidi he had receiyed. 

On first presenting himself to tiie (then) 
Biriiop of London as a candidate for the next 
Ordination, I am told that that good bat some- 
what rough-mannered prelate refused the ap- 
plication. The yoong man's pale looks made 
him ask questions about his health and physical 
powers. But, at a second interview, Dr. 
Blomfield's rough kindness gave way. Young 
Charlesworth, asked by the Bishop to con- 
strue and give the critical meanings of some 
verses in the Ossek Testamsitt, soon satisfied 
him that his was no mere schoolboy's attain- 
ment, bat a deep heartfelt understanding of 
the Inspired Wobd. 

One who most loved him, gives the following 
accotmt: — 



BEV. JOHN CHARLESWOBTH. Ill 

" The interview " (with the Bishop) '* was a 
most paLaful one. The Bishop, surprised at the 
application for ordination from one whom he 
instantly saw to be a dying man, though 
neither himself (young C.) nor his family, as 
yet realized the fact. A second interview was, 
however, appointed. The night before was 
passed without sleep (by J. C.) but, as was his 
custom in wakeful nights, he chose a passage of 
Holt Sobiptitbe on which to fix his mind. In 
this way he spent the night in prayer and me- 
ditation on this passage as found in the Gbeee 
Testament. The next morning he met the same 
unpleasant reception ; but, in the course of the 
iaterview, the Bishop took down a Greek Testa- 
ment, and turning to the very Scripture that 
had that night engaged J. C.'s attention, asked 
his views upon it. This unexpected incident 
kindled him at once into brightness. He spoke 
on the Scripture with his native ease, pouring 
out the thoughts which filled him at night. 
From that moment the Bishop received him 
with the greatest kindness ; watched his after- 
welfare, wrote letters of inquiry as to his health, 
and when his short ministry was closed upon 



112 MEHOIB OF THE 

eartli, wrote in terms of kindest sympathy to 
his pareijts.*' 

Toung Chaeleswobth received ** Deacon's" 
ordination at the Christmas of 1846. He was 
licensed as Curate to his father in St. Mildred's 
parish. 

To see the father, under whose holy in- 
struction he had grown, sitting in the reading- 
desk while the son taught &om the pulpit, was 
in itself affecting. That young preacher had 
outspread his wings to soar in the light into 
whose glory he was so soon to rise. Unclouded 
by the doubts, the darkness, and the difficulties 
which meet the soul in its after-conflicts, he was 
in the sunlight of heavenly promises. A new 
fountain gushing over the desert earth, cannot 
but refresh the scanty herbage and stunted 
plants. A young heart overflowing with the 
water of Life could not but freshen that dreary 
part of LoiTOON. Such words as he poured out 
could not but attract hearers. The church, 
usually so thin, was therefore often filled by 
those whom no ordinary preacher could draw. 

To conclude our notice of this beloved youth. 
In June, 1847, he went to revisit Flowton, the 



BEY. JOHK CKABLE8W0BTH. 113 

scene of his earliest recollections. Before he 
died he wished to speak of Eedemption's glories 
in the church where his father had preached. 
The same writer says : — 

" Once more in great feebleness of body but 
undying energy of spirit, he preached to the 
villagers, amongst whom was a boy he had 
visited. He spoke to them from Galat. vi. 7, 8. 
' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap.' A note made by him in his Bible re- 
cords the time afterwards. In the vestry he 
said that he had chosen those words of Scrip- 
ture with especial reference to labourers in the 
land." 

He closed his short and remarkable ministry 
in September, 1846. Seven months after his 
ordinatioD. 

The Eev. J. P. Nottidge, who had watched 
his spiritual progress for several years, went 
almost daily to watch over him in his last illness. 
One of the young disciple's last messages was ; 
" My tender love to Mr. Nottidge." The 
veteran Pastor, now drawing near to his own 
glorious sunset, met the youthful body at the 
funeral, and read the words of Thanksgiving, 



114 



HEHOIB OF THE 



and the ScsiFrrBES of Eesurrection, over his 
grave. 

Shortly afterwards, he wrote the following 
letter to Mrs. jDharlesworth. It cannot be 
read without edification. He also delivered the 
funeral discourse upon the words of Hebuews 
xiii. 11, 12. 

" Mt deab FBiEin), 

" May our gracious Lord direct my pen, 
or rather the thoughts to which my pen gives 
expression ! 

" How readily could I occupy my time and 
paper with retracing the scenes, and employ- 
ments, and feelings with which our attentioii 
and hearts have been taken up during that 
small portion of that long, long period of your 
whole trial, which we did in some measure en- 
gage in together. How our hopes and fears 
were alternately excited, and night and morning 
we were afresh called to the fresh exercise of 
resignation and patience, to moderate impro- 
bable, but incompressible hope, and to rouse the 
languor of the yet increasing discouragement. 
But what could all this tend to, but to immerse 
us in the clouds of earthliness, and sense, and 
mortality, But, my dear friend, as this cor- 



SET. JOHir CHA.ItLXSWOBTH. 115 

ruptible body, over whicb we moum, muBt put 
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on 
immortality ; so let us leave the mere outside of 
events, and look into the unseen world, and 
what Q-OD is doing there, yea, to what He is 
even doing here below. If we look at the dear 
object of our cares, what cause can there be but 
for congratulation ? Never a moment's occasion 
to cry out any more, * Oh, wretched man that 
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of 
death!' True, we have lost all opportunities 
of ministering to his wants, of soul or body. 
But do we not remember how often we mourned 
at the little alleviation which it was evident we 
could produce, and do '-^e not now know that 
he hungers no more, n6r 'thirsts any more, 
neither does the sun light on him nor any heat. 
He knows not 'what- spiritual darkness means, 
nor indeed anythitig less than the perpetual 
beams of the countenance of Divine Love. 
The Lord is his everlasting light, and the days 
of his mourning are ended. 

" Do not think I have either the composed- 
ness, or stoicism not to mourn, much less to 
suppose that a mother can suppress her 
wounded feelings for the loss of one so truly, so 
interestingly, so spiritually amiable; but I 
mean that the causes of regret are absolutely 



116 



HEHOIB OF THE 



swallowed up in tbe causes of rejoicing and 
thanksgiving ; so that we are conscious that if 
we had been offered his release previously we 
could no more have refused the boon, nor can, 
now that he is taken out of the miseries of this 
sinful world, any more wish him back again, 
than we could in the days of his comparative 
health, have consented that he should be sacri- 
ficed by a violent and tormenting death! If 
Paul could be exceedingly joyful rcr aU his 
tribulations, how should we feel that dearest 
John is delivered oitt of them all ! 

"Then for ourselves. I have scarce been 
permitted to touch the burden with one of my 
fingers! though I bless the Lord for being 
permitted to be a stander by. 

" The Lord grant that I may find it better to 
have gone to the house of mourning than to the 
house of feasting, and that, by the sorrow, with 
which in the course of his disease, my counte- 
nance has been made sad, my heart may also be 
made better, and that, as a survivor, I may lay 
it to heart I But with you, my dear friends, and 
your dear family, the case is far different! 
Your cares, affections, and devoted attentions, 
which God has given for the equable, and distri- 
butive comfort, and benefit of the whole 
domestic society, have been concentrated upon 



EEV. JOJLS CHABLESWOETH. 



117 



one dear indiyidual. It lias been your Iionoim 
and delight to find this was GI-od*s appointment, 
and to give yourselres to it with your whole 
hearts and with your whole souls. It was com- 
pliance with a Scripture injunction, * One 
member suffered, and the other members 
suffered with it.' A Scriptural copy of His 
example who was 'afflicted in aU our afflic- 
tions,' who bore our griefs and carried our 
sorrows. 

" But it was an extraordinary y not an ordi- 
nary dispensation, and it should be matter of 
thanksgiving that the Lord now restores you to 
the discharge of duties, and the exercise of 
affections of which all ia turns are the subjects 
and the objects. And, be it observed, this 
change of cares and duties is not from one 
thing to another that is unconnected with it, 
but though the two occupations of mind and 
heart, on the two periods, are exceedingly 
different from each other in many points of 
view, they are by that very variety connected ; 
and the engagements and employments of the 
period that is just ended, are exactly calculated 
to provide for the more complete and effectual 
discharge of those duties, and for the cultiva- 
tion of those exercises of the affections which 
form the general exertions and employments of 



118 HEMOIB OF THE 

life, in the period to which you are now re- 
turning. 

" If you retain, my dear friend, as I trust you 
and my dear young friends do, a wise and 
tender and thankful recollection of the way in 
which the Lord has been leading you, those I 
mean especially who have surrounded the sick 
bed, you will carry the influence of this remem- 
brance into all the domestic intercourse of 
future life. Tou will keep up to those subjects 
of conversation and communication of thoughts, 
to that tone and that elevation, which make life 
a preparation for death, not only by individual 
meditation, but by the mutual, habitual endea- 
vour to interest one another on these subjects, 
so that they may become habitually easy and 
natural ; and when any one is sick, and common 
subjects become less welcome, the opportunity 
may be immediately hailed, and seized, and 
improved for entering with facility, with vigour, 
and with enjoyment upon the things pertaining 
to the kingdom of G-od. And if this be done, 
your late employments and experience will tell 
you how vastly, how efficiently it will contribute 
to every comfort and every enjoyment in life, 
how it will secure the promise of this Ufe, as 
well as that which is to come. What an in- 
fluence it will shed upon the declining years of 



SET. JOHK CHABLESWOBTH. 119 

Mr. C. and yourself, how it will diffuse itself 
into the future families and domestic comforts 
of each of your dear children. 

** I had written so far last night, having been 
indulged with a season of some qualified activity 
of mind. This morning I am feeble and poorly. 
I wish much to acknowledge dear Elizabeth's 
letter, but I do not feel equal to it at present. 
But tell her that I do in simple honesty of 
heart believe that, to be, and to do, what she 
wishes me to do and to be, is my desire, and 
will be my delight,* but of that desire, or that 
delight, she must be cautious of forming her 
estimate from any actual doings of mine. They 
must always fall very much below my aims, and 
very imperfectly express my feelings. But I 
mean what she means, and desire what she 
desires. 

"Love to all, 

"Tours affectionately, 
(Signed) "J. P. Nottidoe.'* 

* Referring to the desire that this revered friend 
fikonld preach the Funeral Sermon on the following 
Sandaj. 




120 MEHOIB or THS 



PART IX. 

Shobt Notice op the Eev. E. Biceessteth's 
Fbeaohog is Me. C.'s Church. — A 
Letteb fbom the Rev. F. Tacet. — Mb. 

C.'S LAST IlLITESS AlH) DeATH. — GENERAL 
EeFLECTIONS UFOir THE SUCCESB OB 
FaILUBB of MllflSTBT. 

A FBiEND has fumislied me with the following 
narrative of the Eev. E. Bickersteth's Ministry 
at St. Mildred's Church. 

The friendship existing between the subject 
of this memoir and the Eev. Edward Bicker- 
steth, was long, and faithful to the last. Writ- 
ing to ask Mr. Bickersteth to come and preach 
the Church Missionary sermon in his little City 
church, he said in his note, " Come, for love of 
the cause." The answer came in an afternoon 
hour when he was playing and singing the sacred 
hymns with which he generally cheered his spirit 
at that time of the day. Stopping to read it, he 



BEY. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 121 

turned from the pianoforte with his brightest 
look, saying, " he replies, * I will come for love 
of the cause, and^br love of you /' " 

" That sermon can never be forgotten by those 
" who were privileged to hear it. It was the last 
" preached in London for the cause that lay so 
" near the heart of that devoted servant of God. 
" His text was, Daniel xii. 3 ; ' They that be wise 
" shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; 
" and they that turn many to righteousness, as 
" the stars, for ever and ever.' Pirst enlarging 
" on what the wisdom is which cometh from 
" above, then its effect on others, and then its 
" personal results. In this latter contemplation 
'' his spirit appeared wrapt in blissful anticipa- 
" tion. Having dwelt on the trials of the way, 
" and the supporting promises and grace for the 
*' fast spending night, he turned to the illustra- 
** tion of the text, * the brightness of the firma- 
" ment,' saying, in tones that bore into the soul 
" their own deep meaning, and with a radiancy 
" of expression on his face, * You have seen the 
" morning dawn — the masses of dark cloud that 
" overspread the sky, and cast their gloom on all 
" below ; but lo, the rising sun has tinged them 



122 UEMOUt OF THE 

" all with glory, they hare caught his beams, and 
" now they add resplendent beanty to the rising 
" day. This is the promise of the text. For 
" these days of thy pilgrimage, O belieyer in 
" Jesus, the gloomy clouds may gather, over- 
^* hanging thy sky, and darkening the horizon, 
** but thy night is far spent, and when the Sun 
" of Bighteousness in thine eternal day, shall 
" rise upon thee, each of these darkening clouds 
** of tribulation shall gather radiance around 
" thee, and shine resplendent to the glory of 
** thy Lord !* Eeturning with his friend for 
" the night a peculiar joyousness of spirit rested 
*^ on him ; he ran to his upper chamber with a 
" boy*s springing step, and lingered long the 
^* next morning, dwelling on the foreshadowing 
*^ of events coming on the earth. It was the 
" last farewell that he then gave." 

Another of his oldest friends now comes 
before us. 

From the earliest time of his Ministry in 
Norfolk, Mr. C. became intimate with the 
Bev. F. Taoet, Sector of Swanton Moslet. 
All who knew the latter will hail the bright and 
cheerful piety which glowed in his words and 



BET. JOHN CHABLSSWOBTH. 123 

looks. The writer was eighty-one years of age 
when he wrote this letter : — 

*«SWAirTON MOBLET, 

Debeham, 
1862. 

" My deabest Fbiend, 

" Procrastination is, in almost all cases 
a mistake. It is especially so in the correspon- 
dence of those who, like ourselves, are in the 
close of our eighth decade. We now are in the 
front rank and the shafts of death are flying 
thickly around us, and who can describe tlie 
comfort of those who, in such a position, have 
the testimony of God's Spirit in harmony with 
that of their own that they are the elect of God, 
and are under the eye and care of Him, without 
whose permission a sparrow cannot fall. 

" One of our year has just Mien — Sir Benjamin 
Brodie. I have heard that he was of the truth. 

"I feel sorrowful, my dear friend, that your 
infirmity so much confines you. I have no ab- 
solute need of shutting up, yet .1 so greatly 
confine myself to my own place, that there is 
only the difference of necessity and choice 
between us. C, whom I fancy you must 
remember in Nottingham, has in his re- 
tirement giyen place to C. H., a person 
whom I hare known for thirty years, and in 



124 MEMOm OF THE 

whom I have so great confidence, that I be- 
lieve it was chiefly at my instance that the 
arrangement was effected. It will be a difficult 
post, owing to the powerful aid afforded to 
. . . . and which will not be likely to be 
continued. Like yourself, I try to get me 
upon my tower, and to stand upon my watch 
in the expectation of great and mighty events. 
Such caution is reproved now as it was of old, 
especially with and amongst those who see with 
satisfaction the daUy increasing approach of the 
professing Church to the world. May our 
Divine Master, my dear John Charlesworth, 
keep us by His mighty power, through an in- 
creasing faith to full and free salvation. I still 
am able to take my Sunday duty without incon- 
venience : have often two full services. I always 
liked reading the prayers, and I not unfre- 
quently read the evenings when I read almost 
the whole service at St. Mary's workhouse. 
What a journey have we each made since those 
days! what ups and downs! and yet how 
goodness and mercy have followed us from our 
earliest intercourse until now! How fresh 
and bright are the loving words of invita- 
tion of our adorable Saviour and Keeper now 
that we have arrived at almost the end of our 
coiu-se. What courage they inspire. I wish 



BEV. JOHN CHABLEBWOBTH. 125 

you may be able to give me the address of 
Mr. C, I proinised him a photograph, and 
know not where to send it. It will be very kind 
if you will let me have it soon. 

" Ever, my dear friend, 
" Yours most truly and affectionately, 
"F. Tacet. 

" Kind love to all around you. If I live until 
Tebruary 2nd (Candlemas day) I enter upon 
my Slst year. So mind you treat me with the 
respect due to your senior !" 

The aged traveller, who had trod twice over 
the ** forty years" of earth's journey was now 
drawing in sight of his Hohe. For two past 
years he had ceased to minister in his church, or 
labour in his parish. Much bodily suffering was 
appointed to him. He was counted ** worthy** 
thus " to suffer," that up to the last he might 
show forth •* patience having her perfect work.'* 
With many of age's infirmities, as well as amidst 
occasional pain and the weariness that must 
follow it, he did not show the fretfulness, the 
peevishness into which many a godly man 
has in such cases sunk. During his long 
residence in London, I had but few oppor- 



126 MEMOIR OF THE 

tunities of seeing liiiii. Through the two last 
winters, he had been as I heard confined almost 
wholly to his bedroom. Being for a few days 
in LoiTDON during March, 1864, 1 felt an earnest 
wish to pay what I thought must be the last visit 
to my beloved friend. I cannot forget that visit. 
From all 1 had heard of his exhausted state of 
body I hardly dared to intrude. He could not 
lie down in his bed. He sat in a large easy 
chair wrapped in blankets. I saw instantly 
that he was near his glorious flight. His wasted 
form was concealed ; but the eye, that window 
through which the inner soul throws the radiance 
that it has caught from communion with the 
Etebkal, over the emaciated face: the eye 
gleamed with a brightness that baffled all 
thought of decay and death. Like the flashing 
of light from the broken pitchers in Gideon's 
army, so from this broken " earthen vessel" the 
brightness of heaven shone forth. The recol- 
lection of so long past holy intercourse with 
him, as I sat looking on him, deeply impressed 
me. When 1 began a Christian course the ex* 
ample of his meek, unassuming, but solid piety, 
had been about the most useful to myself of 



EEV. JOHK CHAULESWOBTH, 127 

any frienda "whom I knew, and when obliged 
to differ with him in judgment upon some 
Church questions, never did that constant 
friend change. The genial welcome of his hand^ 
his heart, his house, was ever the same. Pro- 
nouncing a few words of Sceiptube as I went 
to speak the last farewell, I could only press his 
hand to my lips, and leave the room. I could 
say but little ; it was not a time for speaking, 
it was a time for holy quiet meditation and gra- 
titude, as I recalled all the past, and looked at 
the aged saint passing over time's threshold. 
Like Jacob " gathering himself up on bis bed," 
my friend seemed to breathe out the words, " I 
have waited for Thy salvation, Lord." 
(Genesis xlix. 18.) 

The closing scene of such a life was 
worthy of that life. At such an advanced 
age as eighty-two, exhaustion and stupor 
often overpower body and mind. In my 
beloved friend's close, the sun set almost with- 
out such clouds. One of those who were most 
near and dear to him, has sent me the following 
short narrative. Far too short it is to satisfy, 
yet 1 will attempt no additions to it. Surely 



128 MEMOIB OF THE 

it is a glimpse of heaven begun upon earth ; 
an " abundant entrance into the everlasting 
kingdom." (2 Peter i. 11.) 

"The day of his release was April 20th, 
" (1864.) His long illness was a time of the 
" most beautiful display of heavenly grace. For 
'^ months he spent the night in his easy chair ; 
" he had only short intervals of sleep. Often 
" he could only get sleep by lowering his wearied 
" head towards his knees. But it was as if the 
" glory of heaven encircled him ; his face shone 
" with an expression beyond anything earthly, 
" and during the long night, when those who 
" attended him sang or repeated hymns of 
" praise, he was constantly heard to take up the 
" words, and faintly echo the song. In the 
" day-time he was as constantly reading Holt 
" ScEiPTUBE, making upon it emphatic spiritual 
" remarks, together with prayer suggested by its 
" teaching. When darkness for a few moments 
" obscured his perception of the truth on which 
" he had so long lived, he would scatter it 
" with some text, such as, ' They shall iteteb 
" PEEiSH, Himself hath said it.' Through 
" those long last months, and most specially at 



BEY. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 



129 



" night, his chamber seemed illumined with the 
" light and love and peace of heaven ; and all this 
'^ while the body's restlessness was increasing, 
" and snatches of sleep got with difficulty. His 
" last words were to repeat the sublime benedic- 
" tion after me, the whole three verses. * The 
" LoBD bless thee and keep thee ; the Lobd 
" make His face to shine upon thee, and be 
" gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up His 
" countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.* 
" Shortly afterwards, his head sunk upon the 
" surrounding pillows lower and lower ; until 
" with a look of inexpressible repose, and with- 
" out a sigh, in quiet sleep, that long illness so 
" agonizing to the body, so brightening to the 
" spirit, left him on the shore of immortality. 

" The morning was one of exquisite beauty. 
" The sun had just risen ; a little bird at that 
" moment came and twittered its morning 
" anthem at a window of this hallowed room. 
" The incident was a touching one to us who 
" knew how peculiar was his love to birds — to 
" all the creatures of God. 

"At this solemn hour a very near relative who 
** came too late to see my fatlier die, entered 

K 



130 XEMOIB OT THE 

^ the house, and remained for a time in the 
*' room beneath that in which we sat. That 
'^ relative said to me afterwards, ' For half an 
** hour while I waited there, I heard sounds of 
" music that could be compared to nothing 
" earthly. I have no guperstUum as you know, 
'* but if anything could be imagined as heavenly 
" harmony it certainly was that* " 

Thus on the 22nd of Apnl, he passed away 
at his peaceful home, at peace with GrOD, with 
man, with himself. The " Quiet Worker for 
Good" had served his generation for sixty 
years. No " angels that excel in strength" 
of intellect or obedience (Psahn ciii. 20.) ask 
praise for recompense for that which it is their 
heaven to do. No ransomed Sdoteb will ask 
for praise, when the crown that he receives 
glitters only with a Savioxtb's mercy. 

A few attached relatives and friends followed 
his funeral, a week afterwards. His body rests 
in the churchyard of Limpsfield, Subbey, in 
which parish his son (as clergyman) teaches the 
doctrine, and lives in the spirit of his Father. 



SET. JOHK CHABLE8W0BTH. 



131 



Some general reflections must dose this Me- 
moir. 

What then were the results of such holy 
labours in those villages, it will be asked P 1 fear 
much less than we might wish or expect. But 
must we not answer the question by asking 
another ? "Was the pastor, or were the people, 
the cause of failure ? Did he fail in doing his 
utmost for them ? or did they, how much soever 
loving, refuse to yield to that Gospel which 
made him what he was ? Let the coldness, the 
impenitence, which so abound in other parishes 
of town and country, parishes wherein ministers 
of higher intellect or power of speaking, labour ; 
let such parishes answer the question. Amongst 
their flock, it is still the few in comparison of 
the many, who are devotedly pious and holy. 
Are we surprised, are we stumbled at the fact ? 
"We can only calm our trouble by going to the 
Word of truth. There we read that through all 
ages of this dispensation, man is in himself 
equally fallen, equally at enmity with God. 

Man's heart, that is, his love and aflections, 
being turned so far from a holy God, blinds his 
understanding f or power of calm perception, and 



132 MEMOIB OF THE 

perverts lAsjuclffmentf that is, his highest faculty 
of distinguishing and accepting Truth. Thus 
the clearest outward proofs of a special Divine 
" revelation/' fail to change man's heart, as long 
as that heart revels only in its own favoured 
objects and toUhes that no such revelation 
should be. 

Man has been placed under various forms of 
privilege and probation, and failed under all. 

One verse of Holy Scripture unfolds the pro- 
cess, (Ephes. iv. 18.) " Being darkened in their 
" understanding through the ignorance that is in 
*' them, through the hardness of their hearts J'* 

In the long ages that were before the flood, 
Adam must have witnessed to his children 
through 900 years of the bliss in Eden, and of all 
the dark ruin that his unbelief had brought on 
himself, and them. If ever Preacher spoke with 
living power of what " he had seen and heard," 
• he must (as we should say) have done so — 
have stamped the truth ineffaceably on all 
hearers. Who could so paint a shipwreck as 
the shipwrecked man ? But Cain, the first-bom, 
rejected his father's words, he would not believe 
that his sin called for a Divine Sacrifice. It 



SET. JOHN GHABLESWOETH. 133 

was only in the family and lineage of Seth, the 
"appointed one,"* who stood in the place of 
martyred Abel, that " men begun to call upon 
the name of the Lord." (Gen. iv. 28.) That is 
to say, an organized system of faith in the 
coming Ebdeemeb, Church ordinances and 
worship, were set up. A protest was thus 
lifted against the false worship^ which whole 
nations were following or adding to the primi- 
tive faith of Adam. Thus of the great kingdoms 
that sprang from the Patriarchs, it is written, 
that " even as they did not like to retain God 
in their knowledge," (Eom. i. 28,) they were 
given up " to a reprobate mind." As to nations, 
" all flesh had corrupted its way upon earth," 
and " the sons of God" partook of the general 
corruption. The flood swept away that dispen- 
sation, and oral tradition, though flowing &om 
the highest Spring-bead, failed to reclaim the 
world from sin. 

Thus in the case of Israel. A million of 
grown-up people saw the Bed Sea divided, and 
standing upright on either side: they heard 

* Gen. iv. 25. '* For God hath appointed me another 
seed, instead of Abel." 



134 KEMOIS OF THE 

tbe Law Bpoken on Sinai. The Sery cloud- 
pillar, and all the unequivocal proofs of Divine 
interference. But a whole generation disbe- 
lieved, and fell in the wilderness. Sights of 
terror and sublimity coidd not, bj tiiemselves, 
renew the heart, or change the will. *^ Their 
" heart was not steadfast in His covenant." 

In the dispensation of *' Law" (as it is called 
in Scripture, 2 Cor. iii. 7,) there was the 
additional gift of a Written Becord. "The 
Law written and engraven on stones." " The 
Book of the Law." (Joshua i. 8.) Definite 
teaching in a book that was to be guarded from 
all addition or lessening ; the Statute Law of 
Heaven to man. This, in union with the oral 
tradition of truths not so directly revealed in 
Scripture ; both were to be the teachers of a 
chosen people ; and through that people (had 
they known their high caUing) of the heathen 
world. For many centuries, Prophets " spoke to 
them as moved by the Holt Q-host" ** of the 
coming of the Just Oke." (2 Pet. i. 21, and 
Acts vii. 62.) 

We need not say how the Jewish Church 
failed in its Mission. 



EEV. JOHN CHABLESWOETH. 135 

But we must go further. Infinite holiness and 
love have walked the earth. " The Word was 
"•made flesh." From His hand miracles daily 
of mercy that could not be denied — words such 
as ** never man spake," were seen and heard by a 
wholepeople. Butit was because heaven had come 
down to earth, that men wished not to believe. 
They hardened their hearts ; their understand- 
ing, their judgment lost its balance. " There- 
" fore they could not believe." (John xii. 38.) 
They " denied the holt and just One." They 
" crucified the Loed of glory." (Acts iii. 14.) 

And when that crowning mercy of God, the 
Holt Spieit came down to plead with their 
consciences, they, as a nation, " resisted" and 
" quenched" His light ; they were " broken off 
for unbelief." (Acts vii. 51. Eom. xi. 20.) 

Here then was the highest glory set before 
man, a Savioue, visibly present, infinite in be- 
nignity and love ; the terrors of Law withdrawn; 
and above all the hope which distinguishes 
DIVINE truth from all false religions. " Life and 
Immoetality brought to Light by the Gospel." 
Countless ages of holiness and bliss thrown open 
to every believing Soul ! 



136 HEMOIB OF THE 

But as in all former dispensations, man, if he 
chooses to disbelieve, can, and will do so. He 
can if he chooses to do so, reject and deny 
the unbounded love as well as the anger of 
^on. 

We go to the Inspired History of the first 
Gospel Age, and there we ask what success or 
failure followed the Apostles' teaching. Un- 
bounded mercy to the whole world was their 
text. " The Loed is not willing that any 
should perish, but that all should come to re- 
pentance." (2 Pet. iii. 9.) *' Who will (desires 
that) ALL MEN should be saved.'* (1 Tim. ii. 4.) 
" God so loved the world." (John iii. 16.) Here 
was every natural motive of Gratitude stirred in 
man's heart, if that heart were disposed to 
believe God's witness of himself. But it was 
depraved man's heart still. In reading there- 
fore the DIVINE history we learn that when 
Apostles worked miracles in attestation of the 
Gospel which they preached, comparatively few 
of their hearers believed " with the heart unto 
righteousness." Above all, there we read that as 
ages should advance, and Gospel Truth should 
be professedly believed by millions, by nations : 



REV. JOHK CHAELESWOETH. 137 

that very profession should stand in place of 
reality, and tares (or false com) should half fill 
th^ evangelized field. Men "will not come" 
to the living stream — though that stream is 
close at hand. " Te will not^^ that is, " Ye wish 
not to come to Me, that ye might have Life.'* 
(John V. 40.)* Of only two towns in which 
Apostles preached the Gospel it is said, (and 

* It were well, if in some important verses of the 
New Testament, onr Translators had given to the verb 
OcXw, (I wish) its more clear English parallel Through 
such inaccuracy, in one or two instances, an erroneous 
impression maj be, and has been given to many minds. 
I will here name the most note-worthj passages :— 

Joho V. 40. *' Ye wish not, ue. desire not, to come to 
Mb." 

John vii. 17. "If any man deHres to do the Will of 
God, he shall know." 

1 Tim. ii. 4. " God onr Saviour, who wishes all men 
to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the 
truth." 

All must see that the English word ** will" that our 
translators have chosen in these texts, is capable of two 
meanings that are opposed to each other in our language. 
** Will" being the sign of a future act, is added to 3ie 
future "mood" of our verbs. "He will do the Will of 
God" is a translation that may give a wrong idea to a per- 
son ignorant o*f Greek. Again, the sentence " God mill 
have all men to be saved," conveys to an uninstructed 
reader the notion of His decree to save all men. The true 
meaning is different : " He withes all men to be saved." 
Surely 3ie distinction of ideas is important. How empha- 
tic and necessary is it in John v. 40 ? " Ye ivish not to 
come to Mb." 



138 MEMOIB OF THE 

probably no otter towns ever bo acted), ** All 
that were in Saron and Lydda, turned to the 
LoED." (Acts ix. 35.). The mass of their 
hearers became more hardened in heart, because 
" the mercies of Gk)D" and " the goodness of 
Gon," led them not ** to repentance." (Bom. 
xii. 1, with ii. 4.) 

And so, generiQlj speaking, it has ever since 
been. 

In the Gentile dispensation, it is surely the 
same. Eailure as well as success. In our own 
day, as we doubt not, men have been called in 
an unusual, an extraordinary manner, to shake 
the stagnant religion of our multitudes. We see 
the Spieit of God enabling men of all classes to 
preach the glad tidings. The collier, the prize- 
fighter, the chimney sweeper, and the engine- 
driver, can chain the attention of thousands — 
as long as a Savioue's mercy is their theme. "We 
bless, we adore the Giver of all these invita- 
tions of mercy. 

A mighty floodgate of" preaching" has opened 
in our country. Every where the voice of the 
Gospel is heard. In the " Theatres" on Sun- 
day evenings ; in Lecture-Halls and Exchanges; 



BEY. JOHN GHABLESWOBTH. 139 

by the river-side ; in market places, men are tell- 
ing one Tmtli to their fellow men. All this has 
not been, and cannot be, for nothing. "We are 
persuaded that tens of thousands of Christians 
were never so earnest in promoting the welfare 
of souls. 

A great multitude has already " believed, and 
" turned to the Lobd." (Acts ix.) Thousands 
on thousands more will join that company. It 
miy be. the beginning of the last witness — 
preaching to the nations (or Gentiles) before 
« the End come !" (Matt. xxiv. 14.) But how- 
ever that may be, we know, from Divine pro- 
mise, that the great and glorious " End" of the 
Holt Spibit's dispensation differs in this re- 
spect from all that have preceded it. Though 
failure has marked the Ghentile Churches ; 
though man has failed in love to God, in effort 
to bless the world ; yet that which began on 
Pentecost shall be universal. " I will pour out 
" of MT Spibit on all flesh." (Acts ii. 17.) " The 
" glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all 
^^ flesh shall see it together." (Isaiah xl. 5.) 
**Hb shall not fail, nor be discouraged (or 
** broken) till He hath set judgment in the 



140 KEMOIB OF THE 

" earth ; and the isles shall wait for His Law." 
(Isaiah xlii. 4.) 

England is only one of the Gentile kingdoms ; 
and great as is the Evangelistic movement here,it 
may not spread at all, or rapidly, to other coun- 
tries. We can only trust that they may par- 
take of the blessing. We leave the result with 
God. Let all of us whose hearts are enlight- 
ened have tongues to speak, according to our 
calling and knowledge. Seek to bless the igno- 
rant. To all Christians, whether poor or rich the 
hope is held out, " Brethren, if any of you do err 
" from the faith, and one convert him ; Let him 
" know that he that oonverteth the sinner from 
" the errors of his way, shall 9ave a soul from 
" deathr (James v. 19, 20.) 

And while such stirring times are with us, 
shall we look with less hope and interest on the 
labours of many pastors who, in our secluded 
villages, are quietly but stedfastly ** working for 

" good r 

Biographies, memoirs of such men are seldom 
written. Their quiet lives afford nothing that 
dazzles ; nothing of what may be called pictu- 
resque or romantic. But does not such a life. 



SEY. JOHN CHABLESWOBTH. 



141 



such a heavenly course of quiet " well doing," 
and modest piety impress on those who knew 
him, the conviction of genuine Gospel life and 
love, than can be gained from any other human 
source ? In times of calm thought when we 
ask ourselves, " how when we come to die, we shall 
desire to have lived .^" Surely, it would be, a 
life like that of Chableswobth, simply good, 
as good is estimated before Gob ; good in that 
highest sense which the Holt Spibit hath de- 
picted, which He alone can make us to live. 



APPENDIX. 



Note I.— Page 29. 

In saying that Mr. C.'s reading '* was not very exten- 
" sive, nor his learning very profound," I mean to say that 
the class of books, even of theological books, was not of 
a wide range. I also mean by the term ** leaming," what 
we now nsually mean by that indefinite word. In theo- 
logy, considered as a great science, we mean by " profonnd 
** learning" an extensive acquaintance with the history of 
the great ** controversies," a deep critical understand- 
ing of (at least) the Greek Testament, together with a 
varied knowledge of the chief Commentaries, both Pa- 
tristic and modem, upon Holt Scriptdbe. It may be 
fairly said of Clergymen, as a body, that not many of 
them are thus " profoundly learned.'* After leaving 
College, most men early enter into parochial labours. If 
these take up much time, very few can give much 
more time every day to the study of criticism — to the 
consulting of Lexicons, or the reading of Church History. 
Of the best, the most useful and pains-taking minister, it 
is no disparagement to say, that he is not ** profoundly 
** learned." Provided that he has a deep knowledge of the 
only Inspired Book, and studies to understand and explain 



144! APPENDIX. 

its true sense to others; proyided that he so nnderstands 
the unity and harmony of its various parts, as to see in 
them but one Book^ one Tbuth: his learning will be 
deep enough to make him *^ a workman that needeth not 
to be ashamed." — (1 Tim.) Again; in regard to "0a> 
tensive reading," By such a term we must understand, 
the reading not only of theological books, but of a fair 
amount of General History, Memoirs, and Travels ; not 
to mention some profitable reading of the world's history, 
for one day-^-the newspaper. 

What ordinary minister can find time for more than a 
surface view of such literary ocean ? He cannot plunge 
into deep waters. 

But we must distinguish between deep reading and ex- 
tensive reading. Those who read fewer books, provided 
those books are the best worth reading on a given subject, 
will generally be the deeper readers. I mean that those 
men who think on what they read, who hoard up the 
knowledge drawn therefrom, and who turn it into solid 
mental gain ; such will be deeper readers. The know- 
ledge that they can make over to others, will be more 
solid and impressive, than that which many readers 
of ** more books" can give us. The latter often do not 
reflect deeply, nor arrange accurately, what they have been 
reading. 

Considering the many daily duties in which Mr. C. was 
engaged, he read much and carefully. After rising at five 
o'clock in the morning, and adding to his store of know- 
ledge from some useful book, he used to say when his 



Appsmoiz. 



145 



family met at breakfast, <* the best part of the day is 
over." 

In theology, it is I think certain, that what are called 
Low-Church writers were his only companions. To be 
better miderstood, I might nse the nnjnst and unpleasant 
term " Puritan," to characterise them, whether it be given 
to our deepest English Theologian, John Owen, or to 
those Clei^gymen who were driven from the Episcopal 
Church on account of their adherence to conscience. 
Such were Baxter, Howe and Henry. Of Commentaries 
on ScBiPTUBB, Mr. C. told me that he continually studied 
that of Matthew Henry. 

What Mr. C. did read, he digested. He could therefore, 
though not an extensive reader, be called a deep one. 



Note II.— Page 33. 
Qualifications of BUhopn or Elders. 

The first of these, and the all-important one, is that 
which is mentioned last by the Apostle. It is used by 
him in reference to Deacons ; it of course refers to the 
higher, as well as to the lower order of ministiy. 

** Holding the mysteiy of the faith in a pure conscience." 
The Mtstbbt being the whole subject of Divine re- 
demption — as it is embodied in the end of 1 Tim. iii. 
" The mysteiy of (lodliness ;" God was manifest in 
THE Flesh. 

1. •* A bishop must be blameless," (ov€irtXi|irroc) [The 

L 



146 APFEsmx. 

Greek word meaxm ** ooe wbo cannot be laid hold of,** i.«. 
<'cliaiged widi Bome (ilfeiio&* In Titos L 6, "If any 
(elder) be bbnndeaB," and in Ter. 7, ** die orerseer must 
be hUtmdeUj as theserrant (minister) of God." Here the 
Greek word is different horn iSbat nsed in 1 Hm. iii., it 
means " gndmrged," " ttnaccnsed," Lb. of grievons wrong 
doing.] 

(2.) Hemnst be « VigiUntf' or "Watchftd." [The 
Greek word means fitersDy ** sober, so as to be able to 
keep watching steadilj." Metaphorically ; " steady, so 
as not to be overtaken in n^lect of dnty."3 

(3.) He must be ** sober,'* or rather " mmnd-nUnded.'' 
[Oifr English word ** sober" has a doid>le meaning. I 
give the meaning that most agrees with the etymology of 
the word.] 

(4.) He mnst be *' of good b^aviour." The Greek word 
has a distinct meaning, ** Orderly, of orderly habita^" 
[derived from KOfffioCf ''fitting order," and thence the 
world, which is in itself** order.'*] 

(5.) He mnst be ** given to hospitality," or, ** loving Ibe 
stranger." [So the verb fiXoKavnv, in Heb. xiii. 2, ** to 
entertain strangers." Fellow Christians coming fipom 
another country, were to be taken in and lodged.] 

(6.) He must be ** apt to teaehy* ** ready to teach" others, 
i^, ** easily given to teach." 

(7.) ** Not given to wine ;" this is explained in ver. 8, 
(referring to the similar qualifications of Deacons), ** not 
given to much wine." 

(8.) **No Striker ;^' ili9X is to say, (metaphorically) 



APPJNDIX. 147 

" not violent assailer," (in words) " pngnadons," " over- 
bearing;*' (explained in 2 Tim. ii. 24,) he mnst *'not strive" 
or "fight." 

(9.) "Not greedy of filthy Incre." [The Greek word 
that our translators have thus paraphrased, connects the 
adjective " filthy" or " base*' with the man, rather than 
the thing, ** not base or dishonourable gain seeking.*'] 

(1 0.) « Patient." [The English word ** patient" is too 
wide to give the more restricted meaning of the Greek 
*< forbearing," t.«. towards men in their ignorance of, and 
resistance to, the truth. It is beautifully explained in 
2 Tim. ii. 24, 25. ^* The servant of the Lord must be 
gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness in- 
structing those that oppose themselves."] . 

(11.) "Not a brawler." [The Greek ;word would cer- 
tainly be better rendered "not conientimu,** or "pro- 
'^' voking ;" its literal meaning is " not a^^/ter.**] 

(12.) ** Not covetous." [Literally " not a lover qf mot- 
^ ney ;" a term far more mtelligiblethan " covetous." The 

♦' love of money" may be passive ; "keeping fast hold of 
it, and unwilling to give toothers ;*' or it may be active 
eagerness to add to our riches. The Greek word here will 
rather mean, " fond of his money,'* and not " ready to 
distribute.*' (1 Tim. vi. 18.)] 

(13.) "One that ruleth well his own house,'* or 
"fiunily." [The Elder or Bishop was to be a manied 
man.] 

(14.) " Not a novice^ [The word means " newly ;>/an^ 
«rf," t.e. just converted to the faith ; like a young tree 



148 AFPS5DIX. 

jnst trans^MBtad to a nev soil, vlnch on diaft aoooimt 
cannot hare taken deep root in it.] 

(15.) *'Not doable-tongiwd ;" i^ not ^peiknig oontn- 
dktoiT doctrine (as a Teadier), 1 Hm. in. 8. ; nor what 
we oooimoiily adl a dambU dealer towards his neigh- 



(16.) *< Notaoianedof riot," (Titos i. 6.) ''Note 
tefisamoieooiTectTenDondian^aeniMtf.* Aocosatioa 
ofanofiencewoQldbenofairezcinsioiiof anElder; ''ochi- 
▼iction*' ought to be so. "Biot" is a Tsgue and nnsatis- 
fiictofy translation, yet, it is Tecy difficult by any single 
English teim to gire the pecoliar in^xat of the Greek 
word. For clearer views of its meaning, I refer the reader 
to Archbp. Trench's valnable work, '* The Synonyms of 
the New Testament." (pp. ) "not coniicted of any 
gro89 excess in sensual indmlgemee/' 

(17.) «< Not seffnnlled and tmnJy." (Titos i 7.) <*Not 
a self pleaser^' (according to the etymology), following 
always and alone his own judgment or desires, so as to 
become ** nnmly," " insubordinate.*' 

(18.) ** Not soon angry." (Titos L 7.) •* Not giyen to 
frequent irritation." 

(19.) '* A lover of good men;' (Titus i. 8.) [" Men'* is 
put in by our translators, ** a lover of all (that is) good^ is 
the l)est and most natural rendering.] 

(20.) ** Just.'' [duraioc is generally translated ^ righ- 
teous" in the New Testament. In the present context it 
iecmi to mean ** fair dealing" towards men.] 

(21.) " Temperate," or " self controlled/' 



APPENDIX. 149 

(22.) **Holy** in heart before God, and so '^pure 
mifuted and unworldly, in conduct** 

(23.) *' Moreover he must have a good report (or * wit- 
nes* borne of him') from lihem that are without** that is, 
from those outside the Church, those not professing to be 
" saints," but who could estimate the moral beauty of jus- 
tice, integrity, and unselfishness. 



Note m.— Page 46. 

On Translations qf the Bible, 

The most accurate definition that I can give of a good 
translation from one language to another, is that yon have 
correctly transferred the sense contained in the original into 
another tongue. What we may call a " word for word" 
translation, however exact, may not, probably never can 
effect this. You may have to use four English words in 
order to give the true meaning of one Greek or Hebrew 
word. But does this make an incorrect translation from 
the latter ? If ten English words were needed to express 
the full sense, the spirit of the translated word, it were 
better to use them for such an end. It is fax better than 
to transpose the Sacred Word into what may be called a 
bald, cold, exactness of word for word. 

The Roman Poet, in giving rules for a proper transla- 
tion, could say : — 

« Nee verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus." 



150 APPENDIX. 

" Nor riialt thou care, exact to render word for word.'* 
(Horat. de Arte Poet.) 

What is sometimes called a mere litiral translation, 
would be no proper translation at alL If we mean by 
the term *' literal" the plain and simplest original meaning, 
of such or such words, we must find out, ere we translate 
them from Hebrew or Greek, whether or not, in those 
original tongues, the Inspired Writer meant to use them in 
such plain or natural sense. 

In Isaiah xlii. 4, for instance, our English translators 
have rendered the text as follows • — ** HE shall not fail 
nor be discouraged^ till HB have set judgment in the earth.*' 
In Hebrew the verb rendered "discouraged**, means pri- 
marily ** broken.*' (See the margin.) But surely our 
eminently wise translators did real justice to the inspired 
idea, in not rendering the text, " Nor shall HE be broken." 
They gave the spirit and therefore the true meaning of 
the original. 

If we keep this just principle of translation in view, we 
shall better understand on what plan the Septuagint trans* 
lators proceeded, when they had to turn a more limited 
language, like the Hebrew, into a more rich and copious 
one, the Greek. 

Did those translators try to give the spirit, the real 
import, and not the mere bald letter of the Hebrew, though 
sometimes they outstepped the limits. The perplexity into 
which anxious readers may be thrown, who do not keep the 
foundation-principle in view, may be easily removed when 
they understand the latter. If we reject as barren. 



APFElfTDIX. 161 

tedious and spiritless, a so-called literal translation of 
some heathen poet, Virgil or Homer, whj are we to deal 
differently with the inspired Poems of Isaiah or David ? 
To give one illustration of the impossibility of trans* 
lating word for word, or what is erroneously called 
literally^ look at the important text of 2 Timothy iii. 
One Greek word is translated by tix English words : — 
*< All Scripture i» given hy Inspiration qf Ood.** These 
last six words written in italics «re the English version 
of the one Greek word Qtonvivtro^. Had our translators 
decided to put word for word, they must have rendered 
the text as follows : ** All writing GoD-breathed." Not 
even the verb *' is** could have been put into the text, or 
common sense put into an English Bible. Insult, instead 
of justice, would have been done to the sacred original. 
And so in thousands of other cases. Our English Biblb, 
with all its defects, may be justly deemed one of the best 
of translations. It has gone in the middle way between 
bald brevity and diffuse freedom. Let us hold the Divine 
treasure fast ; nor suffer a new translation, nor a " re- 
vision" of our Bible to be made, till we have men of 
reverent £Eiith and godliness, as well as men of first rate 
critical scholarship, to touch the sacred Ark. 



Note IV.— Page 48. 

The Apocryphal Books. 
That these books fbund no place in the Jewish Old 
Testament Canon, and that they were not read *' in their 



152 APFEKDIX. 

Synagogues ereiy Sabbatb-day," with ** the Law and the 
Prophets,** is admitted by all fiur Roman Catholic as weO 
as by IVotestant writen. We refer to that candid Roman 
Catholic historian, Dn Fin, for a fall and fair accoont of 
this matter.— (Da Pin's <* History of the Canon," folio. 
Vol. L p. 7, London, 1690.) 

Bat that some or all of them were read and valned 
by Christians, on account of then- moral and religions 
teaching, we are told by Jebomb (althoogh in his Latin 
version he placed a dagger against them, as if as has been 
said by an old writer, <' stabbing them"). So the sixth << Ar- 
ticle" of onr Prayer Book informs as. That a Conndl of 
Bishops, held at Rome, a.d. 413, sanctioned the pablic 
reading of these books, we know from Charch History ; bat 
it is eqaaUy certain that in the first catalogue of inspired 
books, which was put forth by any great Council, (that of 
Laodic8Mi in ▲.». 366) the Apoefypha are not named. 

The earliest known (private) Catalogue of the Canon, 
was that made by Mblito, Bishop of Sardis. This Cata- 
logue, as standing nearest in its testimony to that of the 
Apostles themselTes, most be held of the highest authority. 
The Apoeryj^ are not in it. In the list of Holy Books, 
made by Qyril, Bp. of Jerusalem, and that of Athanasius, 
the book of Bamch is intenoixed with the ** Prophets." 
But Origen and Jerome, the writers most profound in the 
study of Holt Scbxpturb, admit no Apocryphal Books. 

A Roman Council of Bishops, held ▲.d. 413, sanctioned 
the reading of the Apocryphal Books. But in ihejirgt 
Catalogue of Canonical Books ever put forth by any large 



APPENDIX. 153 

or more General Church Council, viz. that of Laodicsa 
(A.D. 366), all the Old and New Testament Books " are 
the same" as m our Bibles, except the ^* Apoedlypsey** 
which is left oat. 

Our English, like the Foreign ** Reformers,*' went back 
to the earliest and purest ages of the Church. In order to 
restore the simple Truth of God, they restored the Wobd 
of God. 

How then came all these spurious books to be added to 
the Old Testament Canon, and to be read and appealed to 
as of equal authority with the Pentateuch ? 

That Church which claims to be Infallible, and to have 
Supreme Power over men, as the very voice of God Him- 
self, the great Western, or Latin Church, has decided that 
books which by Jews and Christians had been unanimously 
shut out from the Inspired List, were absolutely the In- 
spired Word of God. Such was the decree of that 
great '* Council of Trent," which locked up the Bo man 
Church to such perpetual error. 

Three great heresies taught by the Boman Catholic 
Church, claim, in their defence, certain texts as sanctioning 
them out of these Apocryphal Books. The Invqcation 
of Guardian Angels, Prayers in behalf of dead persons, 
and the inherent merit of Alms-giving, as a kind of make- 
amends for sin, appeal to the Apocrypha. The Boman 
Catholic Church's motive, therefore, in including these 
books in the Canon was obvious. These three doctrines 
are amongst her most powerful agents towards binding 
men to false comforts in religion. 



154i APPBITDIX. 

m 

NoT^ v.— Page 82. 

On ^he general question of the designed withholding qf 
definite rules eoncenUng outward Church Ordinances, the 
reader will do well to study carefully Archbp. WhaJtely's 
clear reasoning, in the sixth " Essay** of his book, called 
** Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian 
<< Religion,'* p. 330, fifth edition, published London, 
(Parker), 1856. The subject of this Essay is, " On the 
" Omission of a System of Articles of Faith, liturgies, 
" and Ecclesiastical Canons,'* (i^. in the New Testament). 



THE END. 



0. KOEMAN, print EB, maiden 1.A8&, COVXMT OAEUkK. 



t^